


Little Did You Know

by consciousness_streaming



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: 69 (Sex Position), Abortion, Blowjobs, Discussion of Abortion, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Pregnancy, Songwriting, Tour Bus Sex, True Love, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-25
Updated: 2014-08-22
Packaged: 2018-01-26 11:58:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 61,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1687502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/consciousness_streaming/pseuds/consciousness_streaming
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where Liam's a newly discovered song-writer, Harry's a closeted song-writer, Niall's been writing all along, and Louis and Zayn could probably write too. Also, they're four fifths gay.</p><p>Or: The one where Liam almost has a kid, but definitely has a breakdown, Harry has a zit, Louis has a revelation, Zayn has a secret, and Niall has a blog.</p><p>Or: The one where Liam gained, then lost, then gained more - and not in pounds. Also featuring the rest of the lads and true love.</p><p>Or: The one where Liam and Louis never knew, Harry and Zayn never told and Niall has a secret dragon tattoo, but it's not about that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic features graphic depictions of sex - you're welcome. But it also features a character who has an abortion. I've tried to treat it realistically, but respectfully in that all the characters recognize that the abortion is that character's choice to do as she pleases as it's her body, but it does effect the story in a big way. If that's not your cup of tea, then please feel free to find another fic, I can recommend some great ones.

Prologue:

John watches closely as the five most famous boys in the world file one by one into his little studio. Star96 isn’t a large radio conglomerate, but they do have their connections and John probably sacrificed a lamb or limb or something in another life to get this interview, especially so close to the band’s fourth album drop, but he is determined not to mess this up. His nieces would never talk to him again if he messes this up.

They walk in and there’s an energy around them – a bit of why so many girls would fall in love with these five run-of-the-mill boys from Britain. John can see it, it’s not something tangible, but these boys have something and he finally gets what his nieces have been trying to explain to him for years. But there’s also a bite to their energy right now, John thinks, but doesn’t understand why.

Liam, in the front of the group, walks with his shoulders drooped, like a real life Charlie Brown who just had to give it one more go with Lucy’s football. Louis, the cheeky shortest one, John remembers from his research, follows Liam into the room looking left and right and blatantly judging. He gives a brief nod, his lips turned down slightly, as if to say not too bad, before he reaches out behind him to physically drag the blond Irishman into the room. John watches Niall trip over his own feet in his laughter, a large snapback dwarfing his head and pushing his hair outward in an unflattering way. John wonders if their stylist really let him out of her sight like that. Behind Niall, Harry struts into the room. His head is turned behind him, laughing at something Zayn is saying to him, too quiet to hear. They settle into the couch the office had specially delivered for the occasion and Harry reaches over Niall to try to fix his hair a bit. Louis, on Niall’s other side, smiles widely at Harry and starts fixing the side closest to him. Niall groans exaggeratedly, his brogue muffled by the arm he’s thrown over his face to try to keep them away from his hair.

The last to arrive in the room, Zayn flops onto the end of the couch, his right leg barely on the cushion. Immediately, he shoves himself backward, kicking his feet out and slouching into the seat, his left arm stretched across the back of the couch and forcing Harry to sit forward, elbows on his knees.

“Hello there lads,” John says, feeling both ridiculous and intimidated.

They all perk up, and John watches their faces morph into business mode with the veneer of carelessness.

“Hi,” Harry is the first to say, somehow managing to turn a simple word into multiple syllables. The other boys are quick to say their hellos as well before John jumps into the interview. They exchange pleasantries, Louis tells an amusing anecdote about his new twin siblings as John congratulates him on their birth months back and asks how they’re doing. Niall interjects with a funny story about how a visit to see them nearly went wrong.

“And then he spit up on me, so…” Niall laughed the loudest, his whole face turned red.

“Did you really try to feed my only brother without me or my mum present, Nialler?” Louis asks, shaking his head.

“He should have known not to tease a relative of Louis’ with milk,” Liam points out.

Harry blushes and leans into whisper something into Zayn’s ear while Niall barks out, “especially breast milk!” The rest of the band roll their eyes at Niall except Harry who looks like he missed the last thing Niall said.

John sees now how easy it is to lose control of the interview. In the back of his mind he sees his boss getting angry at him for not getting to the grit – more accurately, he sees his boss getting mad at him because a million fan girls attack the station for not asking better questions. John tries to re-gain the momentum, changing gears. “Now, Zayn, I hate to ask, but I have thousands of girls writing the same question over and over again on twitter – so, is it true you and Perrie Edwards are no longer together?”

John hates asking these questions and his stomach knots a bit before Zayn composes himself a bit, sits up, and starts to speak.

“Yeah, it’s just, like, being on the road is tough, you know? We say that over and over, every artist who’s ever been on tour says it, and it’s because it’s true, yeah?”

“Living out of a suit case,” Louis adds in.

“Being away from your family for months at a time,” Niall says.

“Right,” Zayn says, nodding to them and leaning a bit into Harry while he looks at his friends. “It really wears on you, and it wears on your relationships. Add on top of that the fact that she’s touring too, and it’s like impossible for us to spend enough time together to really make a proper go of it, yeah? It’s not fair to her and it’s not fair to me to try to make a marriage work when we like barely see each other. So, yeah, we’re uh not together anymore.”

“Do you think you’ll ever get back together?” John has to ask.

“Yeah Zaynie,” Louis leans over Niall and Harry to poke at Zayn’s cheek. “The world needs to know if that they can try to woo the Bradford Bad Boi.”

John looks down the line of the couch, Harry and Niall staring down at their feet, Louis still poking Zayn’s cheek and Liam – well, Liam looks peculiar. He’s looking completely away from Zayn’s end of the couch, leaning forward, elbows on his knees.

“No,” Zayn’s clears his throat. “No, we’ll never be together again. But I love her and I wish the best for her. Just, no one should hate her, or anything. Our fans really are the best in the world and it would break my heart if they said mean things to her or like, sent her hate mail or anything.”

“You all heard it here first,” John says, feeling the ratings go up. One Direction dropped a major news bomb on his show. Surely his boss would praise him for this?

“So,” John continues on, cognizant of the time constraints and the awkwardness Zayn exudes, “what do you lads want to let the public know about this upcoming album? It’s out December 15th right?”

“Yeah,” Liam jumps in, coming alive for the first time the whole interview, “In just under a week, actually, and we’re really excited about it.”

“What’s different about this album, would you say? Does it show maturity?”

“Doubt we’ll ever have maturity, mate,” Louis runs a hand through his hair, “but yeah, this album is so drastically different from the other three.”

“Different how?” John asks, “I’ve heard ‘Liam’s Lullaby,’” he nods to Liam who accepts the nod with one of his own, “and it’s amazing, really a truly beautiful song, but you’ve had a slower song as a single before – ‘Little Things,’ ‘You & I’ and ‘Story of My Life’ what exactly is it about this album that is so different?”

“It’s different,” Harry says as two of the other boys start to talk too before allowing Harry to continue, like they defer to him to be their speaker. “It’s different because we wrote it.”

“You wrote it?”

“Yup.” Harry smiles over at Niall. “The difference between ‘Story of My Life’ and ‘Liam’s Lullaby’ is that Liam sat down and wrote that song by himself with no input from anybody. He wrote it and played it for us one day and we fell in love with it and we just knew we had to record it.”

“You’ve had writing credits before, though, yeah?”

“It’s different,” Liam says, “because before we had input in lyrics and occasionally working with a professional writer who could weed out our ideas and morph them more into their own. Which was fine at the time, they are professionals and they are amazing at their jobs, don’t get me wrong. But, at the end of the day, this is our band and we wanted to write our own music for it.”

“We’re just lucky that we know each other well enough to tell one another when something sucks and not get into a huge row about it.”

“Louis’ right,” Liam nods, jostling his shoulder into Louis’, “It’s extremely intimidating to tell a professional who wrote hit music for Rhianna and Britney Spears that you don’t like the lyrics they want you to sing in front of millions of people and put your name behind.”

Louis nods, adding to Liam’s point. “But when Harry wants to put a lyric that literally says ‘I found a unicorn, yeah yeah I found it on a mountain’ we don’t have to find a polite way to tell him that’s crap. I just say, ‘Harry, mate, what’s wrong with you? One, that sounds like Charlie finding Candy Mountain, and two, there’s no way in hell I am singing about finding a unicorn to crowds of thousands every night. My mates would never let me live it down.”

“So you lads just sat around in your spare time, and what? Wrote songs?”

“Yeah,” Liam says, matter-of-factly.

“That’s exactly what we did,” Zayn mumbles, looking down the line of boys almost checking for validation.

“I taught some of the lads the guitar,” Niall elbows Harry right under his armpit. “Louis taught the rest the piano and Harry messed around on the drums until it was good enough, and then found a good beats website so he wouldn’t have to practice anymore.”

“So can you reveal which songs you wrote? Obviously we know one of Liam’s, but how long did you spend on them and who was good at what?” John tries to wrap his mind around this, and decides he needs more information, “Just, walk me through the process, you’re sitting around, hanging out and what? Someone just whips out a guitar?”

“It came about different ways,” Niall begins, “sometimes we had lyrics already and had to make up melodies for them and sometimes I’d have a melody in my head for days but not the right words until Harry would say something, or Louis would be working on another song and it would just fit together, yeah?”

“We wrote all the songs relatively fast,” Liam takes over for Niall and the rest of the boys shift their attention over, “we had an almost entire different album ready to go out and just, boom, we had a burst of creative energy and suddenly we had twenty of our own songs, proper songs, to choose from and we, you know, we thought they were good songs, songs we could be proud of, and we wanted to share ourselves with the world and not someone else’s words about how they feel about someone we’ve never met. All our songs are about us or something we’ve gone through and they’re just…”

“Relatable,” Zayn says, finishing Liam’s thought. They look at each other for a minute and John struggles to put a name on the emotion bouncing between them with three boys as a buffer.

“Yeah,” Liam coughs, looking away, “they’re relatable and they’re true in a way that our other albums have struggled to be. These are organic and they sound organic.”

“They come from our hearts,” Harry says, bravely looking into the only camera in the room like he’s daring the world to say something. “We’re really proud of the album and we hope our fans will like it.”

“Can you tell me the name of it?”

“Yeah,” Louis says, that constant smirk sitting proudly on his lightly scruffy face, “it’s called “Little Did You Know.”

.

..

…

..

.

Chapter 1

The thing about Liam is that he’s adaptable.

A lot of people like to throw adjectives at him: dependable, adorable, sensible, and yeah, those are all well and good. But at his core, Liam is _adaptable_. And that makes all the difference.

Adaptable helps a lad try out for a major television show at fourteen. Adaptable helps that same lad when he loses and returns home in shame and gets himself bullied for a couple years until he goes back to the show, becomes a part of One Direction, and never looks back.

Adaptable means the difference between choking on your own tongue and coming up with a just clever enough answer to an invasive interview question that you don’t offend anyone and hopefully engage a few on-the-border fans.

Adaptable greases the wheels when joining together with four other boys you hardly know and form some of the strongest bonds in a young life, all the while climbing up the fame ladder and selling out a stadium tour. A stadium tour.

Good God, they’re on an stadium tour, Liam thinks for the seventieth time that day, helped along by Niall’s constant whispers of the same thought, to the point that the words almost lose their meaning he’s muttered them so many times.

It’s not even like it’s the first day of the tour – they’ve been in South America for weeks now, and yet still, Liam thinks he won’t ever get used to the sheer volume of people at their concerts. Thousands of fans. Thousands of fans screaming in Spanish.

Liam tries to imagine himself at the median age of his fans, fifteen or so, and then he tries to imagine himself falling so deeply into the lives of five random strangers from across the ocean who don’t even speak the same language… and he’s just amazed. How can so many people care about something that in the greater meaning of life, means so little? How can so many people care about him when _he_ means so little?

And not in a whoa-is-me kind of way. Liam is as pragmatic as he is adaptable and he recognizes that, yeah, in the big picture of life he hardly matters more than scientists studying to cure cancer, and he certainly doesn’t matter more than the queen or the prime minister. He’s just a bloke who can sing and likes to muck about with his mates.

Still, just because he can see the fleeting ridiculousness of it, doesn’t mean he can’t enjoy the ride. He stands next to his best friends, holds their hands while they take a bow together, and he just breathes in and out. The concert’s over and the rush is still there, buzzing under his tanner than normal skin, and he holds steadfastly to the feeling for as long as possible.

He follows Louis off stage, trying to read a few more signs as he does, trying to meet the eyes of just a few more girls, trying to make their night. He says goodbye to the stadium, rows and rows of fans here to support them, rows and rows of people singing along to their songs in a language that more than half of these fans don’t speak.

The lads jump onto the tour bus, their sweaty clothes left behind to be cleaned and returned to them in the morning. Without speaking, the five of them file one by one to the back of the bus where the gaming station and the comfy sofa are, and they collapse.

Niall’s feet stink, even though he showered, and Liam pushes his feet off his lap, and then watches as he slides off the couch altogether.

“Leeyum!” He cries on the way down, but the rest of the lads are laughing too hard and suddenly everyone is talking over everyone, even Zayn, and Liam’s heart swells as he argues with Harry and then Louis over which show they’re going to watch. The argument ends when Niall makes the sad face and they wind up watching “Two and a Half Men” again.

Liam dozes in his spot on the couch, sandwiched between Zayn and Harry with half of Niall strewn over him, having crawled up on them while they were distracted at the funny part of the same episode they’ve seen ten times. Yeah, he thinks to himself, this is the life.

.

..

…

..

.

Walking into his flat for the first time after a long tour is exhilarating every time. It’s never dusty, the maid service he takes egregious advantage of for an exorbitant rate takes good care of the cleaning while’s out, but he always feels like the walls have gone a bit lazy, like they’re used to being alone.

It’s depressing and he depresses himself when he thinks about it too much and gives his very much not alive flat feelings like a real human. The most pathetic part is that like a true Brit, he’s terrified of hurting those feelings.

He unpacks in a whirlwind first thing, his silent apology to the flat for leaving it bare for so long. Clothes fly out of his suitcase, mostly landing on the floor. Well, he’ll have to do laundry tomorrow, Liam thinks to himself, and judging by the lack of clothing he managed to bring back, Zayn’s closet has grown just a bit larger. Liam tries to make himself feel better by thinking that at least Zayn will have that much more laundry to do. He shakes his head, wondering just how many of his t-shirts and sweaters have managed to migrate to Zayn’s place over the course of four years. Thousands of dollars worth, easily.

He settles into the flat, turns the TV on just to make sure it still works, has a look in the fridge. The cleaners haven’t managed to put some food for him in there, but then again, he doesn’t pay them for that. Knowing he’ll have to get around to the grocery store, but also wanting to sink into a well overdue Liam-watches-Netflix coma, he decides to take a bit of a nap before seeing about doing anything else.

He sleeps in his own bed and it doesn’t feel right yet. It never does after a long stretch of time away. The smell of the new sheets, the lack of his smell, or Sophia’s, or even one of the lads’ makes it feel like just another hotel bed. He rolls around under the covers for a few minutes before giving in and reaching down to the floor and grabbing a few shirts and stuffing them around under the covers so the bed will smell more like home.

A few indeterminate hours later, he wakes to the buzzing of his phone. Bleary-eyed and groggy, he reaches over to check the caller ID before quickly answering the call.

“Zayn? ‘Vas happenin’?”

“Shit, sorry mate, were you sleepin’?”

“It’s fine, Zed.” Liam sits up, rubbing his eyes with his free hand, seeing that the sun had dipped below the horizon while he slept. Time zones fucked his system up. Zayn still hasn’t said anything, and Liam sighs. “Hey, you okay?”

“What? Yeah, o’ course I am.” But he doesn’t sound very convincing. He has that tone of voice he gets right before Louis springs out from some stupid hiding spot from behind him and Liam realizes Zayn was the badly acting bait.

He feels his face melt into a smile, because of course Zayn needed a call. Liam should have remembered, usually did, in fact, but something about this flight over kicked his system into full out coma mode.

“It’s okay, mate. I miss you too. You grabbing dinner with Perrie tonight?”

He hears Zayn breathing over the phone and it occurs to him that he shouldn’t be so cognizant of someone’s breathing. “Yeah, yeah, she wants to go to that new place Grimmy’s been talking to Harry about that Harry won’t shut up about.”

Unfortunately, Liam knows just the place as Harry had, in fact, not shut up about it. “Reckon Sophia and I can join you and piss Harry off when we tell him we went there without him?”

Zayn laughs and Liam knows his job is done. “That okay with Sophia?”

“We had vague dinnerish type plans, I’m sure she won’t mind.”

And he’s not lying. He spoke to Sophia last night before they left on Skype and made rough plans to have dinner and hang out at his flat when he gets in – knowing that if she tried to pick him up from the airport they’d have a zoo like situation on hand. Liam knows management doesn’t like that, they like the boys’ significant others under foot as much as possible when it doesn’t interfere with their work, it’s better to quell those gay rumors.

Liam doesn’t really mind the gay rumors so much. He gets it. Sort of. Here they are, five attractive and talented boys who genuinely enjoy the arts and singing and being artistically active and in western society, like, those are not equated with masculinity very often. Then there’s the statistics, everyone loves to point out the statistics.

“A’right, meet there, then? ‘round 8:00, you think?”

“Sure, mate. I’ll ring Sophia.”

Zayn hangs up without saying goodbye. He does that sometimes and Liam got over it after a year of friendship. It just means Zayn’s comfortable.

Liam drops his phone on his face accidently, hitting his own forehead and starting to check around him to make sure no one saw him do something so embarrassing before remembering that no one else was in his flat.

He pushed dial and waited. “Babe?”

.

..

…

..

.

The restaurant is gaudy, but in a nice way. Liam takes one look around the hostess stand before concluding that, yes, of course Nick Grimshaw would love this place. There are gold statues and mis-matching table and chairs, but somehow the feel of the room all comes together and works. Liam doesn’t try to pretend to understand things like fashion or interior design. He just rolls with it.

They are seated away from the windows. Liam falls into easy repartee with Sophia, twining their hands together. He’s missed the weight of someone else’s hand in his.

“And then this girl, oh God, Zayn, d’you remember? The girl with the…” he motions outward, hoping Zayn will catch on. He shakes his head no, but his lips quirk up into a smirk. “This girl comes up to Niall and I’m not fucking around, grabs him and snogs him. That’s not the weird part, that happens to him quite often, no, the weird part is that he, like, recognized her from primary school.”

“Think it was year four,” says Zayn.

“So what did he do?” Sophia asks.

Liam looks between Perrie and Zayn, both on the edge of their seats, sitting close together. Liam thinks Zayn’s hand is on her knee beneath the table. “He called her out. Completely embarrassed her in front of her mates. Apparently she’d been pretending that she didn’t torture him when they were young. It was epic.”

Perrie giggles quietly, her hand in front of her face, “Where was Harry?”

“Frowning from behind him.”

“So what’d he do?” Sophia’s hand reaches out for his thigh, squeezing it a bit like she usually does. She ends up squeezing too tight and pulls away early.

“He waited until Niall left and then apologized to her. Took a few pictures and promised to follow them on twitter. You know how Harry is.”

“Big heart and big balls, that one.” Zayn says, the low light of the chandelier above their table making his eyes look darker than usual.

“Speaking of Harry,” Sophia twirls her water in the round glass in front of her. “He’s the one who told you about this place right?”

“Yeah, Nick Grimshaw kept talking it up.” Liam says, his girlfriend’s beverage making him take an obligatory sip of his own wine, even though he isn’t thirsty. “He must’ve mentioned it, oh, about three thousand times.”’

“Easily,” Zayn agrees, still finishing the last bits of his food.

“Think he’ll fancy it?” Perrie asks Liam, looking pointedly at Zayn’s full mouth.

Liam looks about the place and remembers his earlier deduction. “He’ll think it’s lovely. Bohemian chic or summat.” Zayn snorts, which Liam could take as amusement but chooses to interpret as agreement instead.

“Louis’d hate it.” Sophia announces with all the confidence of someone who’s barely spoken to Liam’s band mate and thinks the one side of him she met is all there is to him. Liam is almost embarrassed by her statement. For most of the world, there would be no problem with her saying that, with someone thinking they know Louis – especially after they have met and spoken with him. But Liam knows Louis like very few people do. And _Zayn_ knows Louis even better than Liam and so Liam is so agonizingly aware of the fact that Sophia doesn’t know him. Doesn’t know him enough to make declarative statements about what Louis will and will not like. He shakes it off.

“I dunno about that,” Zayn chokes down the last bite so he can speak without food in his mouth. Perrie smiles proudly at him, patting his arm lovingly. Liam grimaces. Is she trying to train him, like a Pavlovian dog or something? Positive reinforcement. “You can never tell how Louis will react to something.”

“Especially when Harry’s involved,” Liam finishes the thought, knowing exactly what Zayn meant. Louis is unpredictable on a good day. Adding Harry and whatever layers upon layers upon dark matter and black hole parallel universe level layers Harry brings to Louis, well, no one can predict how Louis will react to anything.

He feels his girlfriend’s confusion across the meter or so between them. “What do you mean?” She asks, and Liam could have mouthed the question along with her.

Liam and Zayn look to each other, like they do in interviews when they aren’t quite certain how to answer. Zayn yields to Liam, like he does most of the time, and Liam tries not to let him down. “Louis and Harry are…” But, he just, he can’t just _describe_ it. The thing between Harry and Louis is one of those things you just know in your bones. One of those primal instincts that live in human DNA and come out when they’re needed – like how to survive in a desert, or how it’s possible to cut off your own hand if you get to survive to see your family. Harry and Louis are something so deep in the currents of the universe, that you can’t teach it or describe it without missing nuances and idiosyncrasies and missing the entire point of learning it in the first place.

“They’re Harry and Louis,” Zayn says when it becomes obvious that Liam isn’t going to keep speaking, “They just are. They’re like soul mates, but act like they aren’t.”

Zayn’s description lacks depth and subtlety, but Liam accepts it for the truth. And easily digestible. He gave a name to something Liam hasn’t before.

Harry and Louis and the cloud of _something_ between them isn’t exactly a common discussion topic amongst the lads. In the management office, perhaps… But Liam hasn’t exactly come out and asked Zayn or Niall, or heaven forbid, Harry and Louis about it. That topic is just one of the things they all silently agreed is best not to speak about.

“They’re in love?” Perrie asks Zayn, and Liam bites back an urge to snap at her. Didn’t they just try to explain that it’s complicated? He takes a breath to control himself.

Liam feels one side of his mouth curl upwards. “He didn’t say that.” He stabs the fork that crept into his hand unknowingly down into the last cherry tomato on his plate, the remnant from his earlier Caesar salad.

Sophia takes up with Perrie and Liam smiles affectionately. “He meant it,” she points out. It must seem so simple from the outside.

Liam puts the fork back down, the tongs scraping harshly on the ceramic plate. “No he didn’t.” Liam again struggles with how to explain it to someone on the outside, “they’ve never confided to any of us if they are or aren’t—“ He gives up once more. “It’s very delicate and we don’t talk about it.”

A small frown mars Perrie’s beautiful face. “Why not?” Liam admires her, he really does. He admires Zayn and Perrie together. They make a pretty picture, and anything that makes Zayn happy makes Liam happy.

Zayn catches Liam’s eye once more. Liam’s struck by the difference between his best mate and his best mate’s girl – Perrie, with her dyed hair and her blue eyes, the ideal picture of European womanhood but with an edge. Porcelain skin, blue eyes, thin… She contrasts perfectly with Zayn’s brown skin tone, his Pakistani looks that come across as ‘dangerous’ and ‘rebellious’ simply because his skin isn’t whiter than snow. Liam knows that people say racist shit about him all the time. Liam feels guilty because a small part of him, deep down, thinks that Zayn unconsciously chose her specifically because of those traits.

The guilt comes in because, well, Liam’s not blind. He sees how Perrie looks at Zayn, how she adores him, how Zayn calls her every night, religiously, before he calls his mother to catch up. Zayn shares a part of himself with her that he can’t share with the lads, and that’s the nature of friendship, though, isn’t it? That’s why a friendship is different than a relationship. There are things you can’t share with another man.

Then again, Liam muses, he once cried in Harry’s arms over a mean tweet. He’s also brushed Louis’ hair (and teeth). And he does put Niall to bed in his own bunk pretty regularly, so…

“Why don’t you talk about it?” Perrie asks again, looking between the two of them for answers.

“Because,” Zayn begins, and that’s more than Liam had to say. “Because, okay look.” He sits up straighter, so that his shoulders hit the top of his chair and that’s when Liam knows that Zayn is serious. Zayn doesn’t do serious as often as people think he does. “Look, we don’t talk about it because when we first signed up with Modest! Management, we signed a clause that we wouldn’t have any relationships within the band.”

“You mean like…?” Sophia whispers so as not to be overheard, like they weren’t just talking about Harry and Louis’ gay love for each other.

“Yeah,” Zayn shrugs, slinking back in his seat again, “the gay thing doesn’t really sell all that well to the pre-teen demographic they want us to sell merchandise to.”

Liam picks up on Zayn’s use of the word ‘merchandise’ and realizes that’s exactly right. To the part of their fan base who will buy the most stuff, the pre-teen to teenage girls around the world who still live with and are influenced by their parents’ values, a gay member would greatly diminish their value. A gay romance within their group would drop it down that much more, from a business stance.

Liam wants to throw up in his mouth a little bit.

“We don’t have that in our contract,” Perrie says, looking at Sophia like she’s trying to reassure her or something.

“Well,” Liam clears his throat, “I think they added that into ours because everyone could tell that they fancied each other. Total mutual ground worshipping.”

“So, why did you guys go along with it?” Sophia asks with smugness in her voice that grates on Liam nerves a little bit. He loves his girlfriend, he does, but he occasionally sees flashes of her from when they were young and he had a terrible crush on her and she enjoyed crushing his dreams. “I mean,” she backtracks, “I know you aren’t homophobic or anything.”

The corners around Zayn’s mouth tense and Liam only notices because he was already looking to him to try to answer the next question.

“We had a chance,” he says to Sophia out of the corner of his mouth, his eyes still on Zayn and the troublesome look on his face, “to make our dreams come true. None of us were going to pass that up, Soph.”

They sit in relatively peaceful silence for a minute, taking it in. Liam is sure the girls are thinking of more questions, but he isn’t trying to predict them. His thoughts are on Zayn’s face. Why was it sad looking when Sophia said that? They weren’t homophobic. None of them are. Louis is the most vocal about not being gay but the lads all know that’s because he _is._ Again, though, not a thing they talk about very often. Or at all. They all love Louis more than they love One Direction, and that will always be how it works. The lads before the band.

“I think,” Zayn breaks the silence so quietly it’s like he’s trying to keep it going, “that if they’d gotten together then, the band wouldn’t have been what it is now.”

Liam casts a confused glance in Zayn’s direction, knowing that he will elaborate. “I’ve given it a lot of thought. We were all so young, Harry was just sixteen. I doubt that, given how overwhelming things already were for us, that they would have been able to make it work. And Louis wasn’t mature enough then, neither of them were really, to have been able to get along afterwards, for the bands’ sake. Their break up would have torn the band apart.”

Liam recalls Louis calling him to the dressing room door just to pelt water balloons at him and nods along with Zayn’s assessment. Louis did that last week. And he’s twenty-two.

“You’re probably right,” Liam finally says. “None of us knew each other well enough to get passed that.”

Their waiter comes forward with the check, Liam grabs it off the edge of the table and slips his black card inside, not even bothering to look at the price. Money is a luxury these days, and he’s been careful with his. No Mystery Van purchases for Mr. Liam Payne, no sir. But maybe a Ferrari one day.

Zayn taps his hand. Good, so next meal is on Zayn.

Perrie waits for the waiter to take the card to the back to charge it before asking, “So you still think they’re meant to be?”

Liam puts his wallet where it belongs in his back pocket, “Harry and Louis? Absolutely.”

“Nice rhyme, bro, keep going,” Zayn cheers, immediately launching into a beat.

Liam feels the challenge and the exhilaration of making music, any kind of music, and lets Zayn’s beat creep into his skin. “Harry and Louis, Absolutely, I believe in them like Hung Kung Phuey. Phuey, pooey, my salad was gooey, ate that Caesar up like a…”

He’s laughing too hard to finish the rap, but that’s okay because Zayn is too.

“What about Eleanor?” Sophia says, grabbing her sweater off the back of her chair and blatantly not acknowledging the epic rap battle that just went down. They start to leave the restaurant, already getting a bombardment of texts from Harry with frowney faces. Guess that cat was out of the twitter bag. “Louis is with _her_ , not Harry.”

Liam meets her eyes, and for the first time, wonders why he’s with her. To a young Liam, she was the perfect girl. But young Liam also wanted to be an Olympic runner and thought he would never be able to drink because he only has one kidney. Oh, and he also didn’t think he would ever be in a world famous band and doing a stadium tour either.

“For now,” is all he says and holds her hand as they make their way through the crowd to the waiting car. He barely pauses when she trips on the curb.

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He takes Sophia back to his flat, spending the ride in silence, waiting for her to open up. He parks carefully in the car park and opens the door for her. They take the elevator up to the third floor to his flat, normally Liam would take the stairs, but when he’s escorting guests he rides with them.

He unlocks the door and finally has had enough.

“What’s wrong with you?” Liam asks, done playing around. Something’s up with Sophia and Liam has tip toed around enough in his public life to be able to deal with this shit in his private life as well. He wouldn’t call himself confrontational, but his pragmatic side makes him want to just get things over with and get to the bottom of whatever is bothering his girlfriend.

They move out of the doorway, stepping into the living area and her mouth opens into a wide circle. “What do you mean? I’m fine.”

She sits down on Liam’s ugly couch, picked out by Niall because of its excessive comfort levels and not even one iota for how it looks in his too-big flat. “You’ve been acting strange.” Liam follows her, sitting to her right and turning his entire body to look at her. Might as well do this right.

“God,” she says, and Liam spots the cracks in her mask, “it’s not all about you, Liam. Maybe I have something on my mind. Maybe I don’t want to go to dinner with the mate you’ve seen the entire time you were away from me. Maybe I don’t want to talk about One Direction or the famous Liam Payne right now.”

He nods seriously, “Okay,” he says and finally he’s getting somewhere. Sophia is and has always been a cold mountain. She’s beautiful and worth the climb up her treacherous slopes, but damn she can be cold and inaccessible. “Then don’t. Tell me what’s wrong. What’s bothering you?”

He watches as she recovers herself, “No,” she waves him off, putting a fake pleasant smile on her face and eyes darting around for the remote, like she wants to silence him. “You don’t have to worry about it. I’ve got it handled.”

“You don’t have to handle it all the time, Soph,” Liam says, hiding the remote behind his back and watching as she fruitlessly searches for it under the couch cushions. She still can’t look at him and it’s starting to frustrate Liam. He’s trying to have a serious discussion here. “That’s the point of being in a relationship, sharing your burdens and stuff.” He finds his voice rising a bit and he’s a bit taken aback. He hadn’t realized this is such a big deal to him. “Stop trying to block me out of your life. I want to help. I’m here to help.”

Sophia falls back into place next to him, stopping the façade. “Well, I… the thing is—It’s not something you have to worry about.” Liam’s stomach drops. She copped out in the end and a large part of him is disappointed. He wants her to fight back. He wants her to prove that what they have is worth fighting over, worth feeling a little passion.

Liam didn’t go to the X factor more than once because he gives up easily. He takes her hand in his and uses his other hand to push lightly on her cheek to force her eyes to meet his. “I _want_ to worry about it. I can’t keep begging my girlfriend to tell me about her life.” He says and feels her hand shudder under his, like she can’t decide if she’s trying to squeeze it or break his grip. “You tell me about superficial stuff – the mean look you got on the train, the hair cut you got, but you never tell me _anything_ deeper than that. Like, what about your family? What are you afraid of? What are—“

“I’m pregnant”

Liam huffs a cough. “What?”

That tired little hand, so small in his, finally tips the scale on the balance and begins to squeeze his hand so tight her knuckles lighten into a pale white.

“I was late… So I, um, took a test and I’m pregnant.” Her eyes are big saucers, and for the first time in their relationship, Liam feels like she’s really looking at him as herself. She’s just a scared girl in over her head and she’s looking at him like he has some clue of what to do or how to behave. Little does she know he has less of an idea than she does.

“Pregnant, like, with a baby?”

God, can his mouth be any more independent of his brain? He regrets his words immediately, but somehow his stupid mouth might have done something right this time, because she snorts a little laugh, her real laugh.

“I hope it’s a baby. Or we have bigger problems.”

Liam feels small sliver of the tension between them break, and… yeah, a baby. Wow, okay. “That’s… that’s… A baby.” Oh good, his mouth functions are restored. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God, a real baby.”

Liam can’t think. There’s literally this white wall behind his eyes right now and images of children from those adverts for helping African orphans flash through his mind on a loop.

“Look,” she says, putting her hand on his knee and Liam notices for the first time that his grip on her hand had broken at some point and he hadn’t even recognized it happening, “can we just… process and come back to this conversation? I’m tired and I just want to go to sleep right now.”

He feels his head nodding and she stands up from the couch and walks into his bedroom without looking back. Liam follows a minute later.

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He knows Zayn isn’t awake. It’s early. It’s their day off. Zayn had a few glasses of wine last night, there’s a 100% chance that he’s asleep right now.

Liam doesn’t care. He just knocks louder.

“Liam?” The door swings open to reveal Zayn in a tattered pair of what looks like Louis’ trackies, and a beard just on the wrong side of scruffy. “It’s 9:00 in the morning, Liam.”

He knows. He patiently waited through the whole night, made Sophia breakfast this morning, and walked her out before calmly coming over to Zayn’s house. He knows exactly what time it is. He’s been watching the clock for hours before he could allow himself to freak the fuck out. He knows what time it is.

“Is it cool if I hang out here?” He hears himself ask, voice weak. Zayn’s eyes melt and he holds the door open to allow Liam through.

“Sure, mate, but I’m going back to sleep.”

He doesn’t see Perrie’s purse by the door and then belatedly remembers her saying she had to leave for tour at dinner last night. “Can I come?”

Zayn rubs his eyes, already halfway up the stairs to the master bedroom. “Sure.”

Liam watches Zayn fall back into bed like a dying man and tentatively joins him, curling up into a small ball on side of the bed closest to the bathroom. He doesn’t move for a long moment. He counts his breaths.

Zayn falls asleep violently. He tosses and turns and kicks up the blankets. All the while Liam finds he can’t move. His limbs are stuck in the fetal position and he doesn’t think about the irony and he doesn’t think about anything at all. Until he sleeps.

He wakes to the sun blaring in his eyes hours later. Sunset.

His limbs must have relaxed in his sleep, because he wakes on his stomach with one leg stuck out at a weird angle and a small but noticeable pool of drool under his face.

The door is open, and Liam hears pots and pans clinking together in the open kitchen downstairs. He smiles to himself. He loves Zayn’s curry. Quickly, as his mind wakes up, it all comes back to him.

He gets up and leaves the room before he can think about it any longer.

In the kitchen, Liam sits at the breakfast bar and simply watches Zayn work. Zayn doesn’t look surprised to see him, he catches Liam’s eyes and beams at him. One of the things Liam loves about Zayn the most is that he’s always happy to see Liam. Even at 9:00 in the morning on their day off and hung over.

Zayn pulls his iPhone out of his pocket and places it carefully into the iHome next to the stove and turns Bruno Mars up as loud as it will go. Liam nods in gratitude and watches Zayn’s fingers move over the cutting board, the pan on the stove, caressing the wooden spoon. He likes seeing this side of Zayn, the part of him that embraces his cultural heritage. The part of him that loves being able to make something inherit to him. Food, Liam has found, is one of the great bridges between cultures. He sees Zayn put up with a lot of shit in their world. He deals with racism that the other lads cannot even contemplate. He gets called a terrorist. He gets typecast as a bad boy when he’s the farthest thing from a rebel without a cause. He’s just a shy boy who loves singing and art.

But with food, people put their prejudices away a bit more than in any other aspect of culture: language, art, traditions, ect because those are hard to translate sometimes. Zayn uses his family’s curry to share his culture with those he actually cares about.

“Liam?”

He watches Zayn make their plates. “Yeah?”

Liam walks to the fridge, grabs two beers out of it and pops the caps off them. “You’re totally freaking out about something aren’t you?”

He sits back at the breakfast bar and chugs a bit of his beer. “I don’t want to talk about it, Zed. I’m processing.” He takes a third swig of his beer. “We said we were going to process.”

Liam doesn’t have to be in his right mind to know that makes no sense to Zayn. He goes with it, though, and Liam appreciates that more than anything else.

“Alright mate.” Zayn takes a big bite of his curry. Little bits of food come out when he opens his mouth to speak more, “Fifa after this?”

Liam shrugs. “Yeah, alright.”

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They play Fifa on Zayn’s couch. For three days straight.

And Zayn doesn’t ask. Liam stops only for bathroom breaks and to sleep. On the third day, Zayn kicks him out of bed and forces him to shower. Other than that, he doesn’t move off the couch.

He’s glad and upset that he has nothing but time for the next week, no plans, no scheduled appearances. All he has to do is sit there and think.

At least if he had business commitments he would be too busy to think. That’s what he tells himself as he eats his fifth packet of microwaveable popcorn. His mouth is cut up and the salt from the popcorn stings as much as it soothes his soul, and instead of stopping because of the pain he just keeps eating.

Enough is enough, Liam thinks as he wipes his hands off on Harry’s borrowed trousers, the crumpled bag of kernels now lying with the other four discarded packets on the floor.

“Z?”

Zayn pauses the game, noticing that Liam hasn’t been trying for the last five minutes while he destroyed the popcorn. “Yeah?” He looks over at Liam lazily, sees the determination that Liam can feel on his face, and sits up straight. Liam watches him mentally prepare himself for the conversation. “You ready to talk now?”

He sinks into the couch, throwing his head into Zayn’s lap. For some reason he can’t look him in the eye when they talk about this. Zayn’s fingers immediately work into his hair, kneading his scalp the way he likes.

“I think so,” he whispers. There’s no other way to say it, so he spits it out right away, “I’m going to be a dad.”

The fingers pause. Liam sneaks a peek up at Zayn’s still scruffy face. He’s looking at the TV, but not looking at anything really. Anyway, all Liam can see is the bottom of Zayn’s chin and he thinks in this moment that he could probably identify every boy in their band by the undersides of their chins. They should play _that_ game in one of those long interviews.

“Whoa,” Zayn says after a full minute of silence. “No wonder you sat on my couch for three days.” And that right there is the reason Liam came to Zayn and not to anyone else, including his own family. Zayn allows Liam to be Liam – he accepts him wholeheartedly for who he is, how he can be ridiculous, or maudlin, or stubborn, or too serious. “Who else knows?”

“Well, _she_ does,” he says, adding unnecessarily, “Obviously.”

Zayn flicks his head to the side, raising his eyebrows a bit as Liam continues, “I get the feeling she didn’t ever want to tell me. Like, that’s my kid too, you know.”

“Yeah, mate,” he starts rubbing Liam’s head again, sensing the storm brewing over Liam’s last confession. “So what are you going to do?”

Fuck, if he knows. He hadn’t thought farther than “BABY” and having to tell his parents and his sisters and his friends, and shit management, that he got his girlfriend up the duff. “We haven’t, like, talked yet, we were processing, but…” He swallows a bit, letting the news finally sink in, seventy-two hours after the words slipped out of Sophia’s mouth. “I think I’m going to be a dad, Z.”

“You know what I think?” Zayn pulls at his shoulders, urging him to sit up. Liam follows the silent order, now curious and tentatively afraid of what might come out of his mouth.

“What?”

Zayn smiles wickedly, the kind that lights up his eyes and shows teeth. The dangerous smile. The I’m-planning-something smile. Liam holds his breath.

“I think we need matching onesies for us and the little tyke.”

And that’s the other reason Liam came to Zayn. He is full of brilliant ideas.

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He and Zayn end up buying a whole lot more than a onesie. Once they buy the cutest three or four, okay, ten, onesies they find – they trip and fall into the world of sports kit for newborns.

They do what any two young lads with too much money and too much enthusiasm do, they buy bucket loads of baby shit that they probably won’t need.

But Liam finds himself growing more and more excited as they flip from page to page. He sees himself dressing a little baby in a Laker’s jersey. He sees Zayn trying to wrangle his godson or daughter into one of the “Baby’s favorite Uncle” shirts they bought, and he thinks, yeah, that might be something he wants. It is, it is something he wants. He wants this baby with every breath he breathes, until his lungs fill to capacity and he starts to tear up.

Thankfully Zayn either doesn’t notice, or just doesn’t see. Besides, Liam’s pretty sure Zayn is more excited that he is.

Hours later and several thousand dollars poorer between the two of them, Liam finally feels the boulder roll off his chest.

“I think it’s time to call Sophia,” he says, noticing for the first time that it’s almost dinnertime again.

Zayn smiles proudly at him, like he knew all along Liam would eventually get there and he was just playing the entire time. Liam knows him well enough to think it might be true. “You want me to be here, or do you want some privacy?”

“You can stay,” he searches through the garbage he’s collected over the last few days of denial for his phone. “I’m just going to invite her to dinner for now. Give her time to realize we’re going to talk about all this.”

He finds it under the second popcorn bag and immediately dials her number. Zayn looks at the discarded pile of trash by Liam’s feet and pulls a disgusted face. The phone rings and before it goes to voicemail, Zayn’s started gathering up the trash to clean it up, a bit of a relieved look on his face. Like he was letting it be for Liam’s sake and now he can finally dump it.

“Zayn, I’ll clean it up, shit, gimmie just a –“

“Liam?” Sophia’s tinny voice says in his ear.

“—minute, damn, Oh! Sophia!” He uses his left arm to push Zayn over, causing him to spill all the trash he’d picked up and make the floor look even messier. At least Liam had his mess contained to a four foot radius, now one of the popcorn bags is under the TV stand and a Gatorade bottle is still rolling towards the kitchen.

“Liam?”

“Sorry about that,” he says, purposefully not looking at Zayn’s glare. “So, hi. How are you?”

He hears the hesitation in her voice when she answers, “I’m fine. How are you?”

“Better now,” he chuckles a bit to himself, glad she didn’t see the last few days. “So, hey, do you have any dinner plans?”

“No, I’m free. Are you finally done processing?” She sounds pissed off, but then again, Liam thinks in his defense, she had way more time to deal than he did. She knew for ages that she was pregnant and hadn’t told him. Well, he assumes. He actually didn’t ask how long she had known.

He chooses not to get defensive with her. Like the mature adult he is. Like a man with a baby to take care of has to be from now on. “Yes, Soph. I’m done processing and I’m ready to talk. Want to come to mine for dinner? I’ll order in.”

She sighs loudly and Liam starts thinking about what’s safe to order, taking a baby into account. No sushi, he knows that much. He’ll have to do some more research before dinner tonight.

“Sure, Liam. I’ll be over in an hour?”

“Oh, better make it two. I’m still at Zayn’s.”

She doesn’t speak for just a few seconds too long, before saying, “Say hi to Zayn for me. See you at dinner.”

“I will. Bye.”

 _Click_. He hears a dial tone that he associates with conversations with Zayn.

Speak of the devil, Zayn’s still glaring at him from where Liam pushed him over. “Here, let me clean it up. Fuck, I made a mess of your place and used up all your time for three days, the least I can do is clean up behind myself.”

“Fine,” he says and sits back on the couch, turning the channel from their long-paused game to some reality show that he usually swears he doesn’t watch.

“Fine.” Liam says and wonders why it’s so easy to fight with Zayn over the stupidest shit and why it makes him feel like a complete shithead.

He tidies up the living room in record time, before the second commercial is over. “Zayn?”

Zayn doesn’t look away from the telly. “Yeah?”

“What’s safe for a pregnant woman to eat?”

“Not sushi.”

Liam contains the eye roll that’s begging to come out of him. Liam sits back on the couch and does some googling on his phone. Ten minutes later, he’s carefully avoided being sucked into a tornado of pregnancy information and landed on a few safe options for Sophia to choose from. He decides to just order from three different places and hope one strikes her fancy.

He has an hour to get to his place.

“Hey man,” Liam says to the side of Zayn’s face. He’s overly focused on the show in front of him. Liam doesn’t let that deter him. Zayn has funny ways of acting – he’ll let a mate stew in their own filth and anxiety for three days, but will then act like a moody idiot over the stupidest reason. Liam doesn’t even think he can pinpoint why exactly Zayn’s upset. Because he picked up his own trash? Because he pushed him over? He’s tripped him before, pulled his trousers down onstage, slapped his bum numerous times, but this is what he gets upset over?

Liam’s dealt with Zayn’s strange moods for years now, and the best thing to do is not to let his negative mood affect your own. He tries to push you away with his attitude but all he really wants is affection. It’s usually a lose-lose situation for Zayn, but Liam stumbled into figuring it out early days in their friendship.

“Hey man,” he tries again. “Thank you. Really.” He puts his hand on the back of Zayn’s neck, knowing that was one of his favorite things. “I appreciate your help and your patience with my freak out. And I can’t wait for my—“ He pauses, rubbing Zayn’s neck a bit. He looks like he’s about to cave. “I can think of no better person to be the godfather.” He says ‘godfather’ in a bad American accent, and that does it. Zayn cracks a smile, throwing himself sideways to hug Liam.

“Really? Godfather?”

“Yeah. Really.”

Liam can see every single one of Zayn’s teeth in his smile. “The lads will be so jealous.”

Liam pauses a second. “I don’t want to tell them yet. I’ll tell them eventually, but I want to keep this for myself for a bit. Between me and Sophia. And the godfather, of course.”

“Alright. But you’ll tell them eventually?” He asks.

“I promise I’ll tell them before they meet the little bugger in person, okay mate?”

“Good. Now get out, you wanker. You have dinner to order and a girlfriend to grovel to.”

“That’s the mother of my children you’re talking about!” Liam can’t keep the brilliant smile off his face. He could light up an entire stadium with the energy he feels right now.

“Yeah,” Zayn says, walking him to the door, “She is, isn’t she?”

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“So?” Liam asks hesitantly. Sophia is propped up on the couch next to him, digging in to the sandwiches he’d bought from Pret on his way home, just one of the options for her.

“So…?” She says back, clearly uncomfortable.

Liam takes a deep breath and sees he’s going to have to be the one to lead this conversation. He waits for her to put her sandwich down and then takes her hand in his own, squeezing with what he hopes is reassurance. “So I’m on board, Soph. I’m here for you all the way. I’m going to be here to support you and our kid, okay? I want this to work. I want this so much. I want you and me and a baby. A baby, Sophia.”

She nods at him, tears beginning to pool in her eyes. Liam pulls her into a hug as she cries from relief.

“Hey,” he says, wiping under her eyes in vain. “Hey, I’m here, it’s alright, babe. It’s gonna be alright.”

She attempts to smile through her tears, a bit of snot making its way onto his hand and Liam could not care less. He loves this girl and he loves their baby. “We’re gonna get through this.”

She starts hiccoughing and tries to speak, only to find the hiccoughs are too violent to allow her to talk so she just smiles and nods her head before launching herself into his arms.

“Th-th-thank you,” is all she manages to get out.

They sit together like that for hours before Liam takes her to bed and they make love.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter with Sophia, I promise.

He spends the rest of their break with Sophia in a baby trance before traveling with the lads to Ireland to perform.

He misses talking to Sophia’s stomach. He misses talking about nursery colors with Sophia. He’s glad he convinced her to let her lease run out and move into his flat with him. They pushed through the last two days of his break to get all her stuff moved in. With the lads helping, it took almost no time at all. Harry, Liam, and Niall managed to move all the heavy furniture in (her bed, dresser, ect went into the guest bedroom that sat bare since he moved in) and Louis directed from afar. Louis really has a gift for managing other people’s hard labor.

Zayn put himself in charge of helping Sophia pack some of the smaller stuff into boxes while the boys moved the heavy furniture. Liam suspected it was so that someone who knew about her condition would be around to make sure she didn’t overexert herself. Liam appreciates Zayn’s protectiveness over Sophia and the baby.

On the morning he has to leave, he says goodbye to a fuller flat and a flat tummy.

He doesn’t cry, the flat is just dusty from moving all that furniture.

Ireland is so green. Like, wow green grass and green flags, and just green. Liam likes it. They play a few shows and Liam has literally never been so happy in his life. He’s doing what he loves, with the people he loves, and he has a baby on the way that he can’t wait to meet. He starts to think of the songs in different ways. Like during “Story of My Life,” he starts to think how his son or daughter is now a part of his life, part of his story. And he’ll be a part of their story from the very beginning.

He thinks the lads are suspicious that something has changed. He’s not suddenly much more mature than he was before (though he’s always been arguably the most mature of the lot), but they must sense a difference because each of them act just a little bit differently.

Harry tells him his haircut makes him look older in that slow way that Harry speaks and Liam doesn’t have the heart to tell him he hasn’t gotten his hair cut since he last saw Harry.

Louis cuddles up to him on movie night instead of Harry or Zayn and won’t explain why. He just says Liam looks like he needs it. Liam carefully doesn’t look at Zayn.

Niall takes them to his family’s house to visit. They eat his mother’s food and talk with his brother and sister-in-law. Louis and Harry fall to pieces over Niall’s nephew, giggling at him and making silly faces to make him laugh. Harry feeds him a bottle and Louis gets to rock him to sleep and Liam just watches. He takes careful mental notes, how to hold a baby, how to rock a baby, how to feed a baby. What the fuck, they barf on you after they eat? No one told him that!

He watches with longing and jealousy and a need that he can’t identify. But he can’t make himself say anything. He can’t make the words come out of his mouth.

He gets his chance right before the baby’s family leaves. Louis and Harry are arguing about something in front of the TV with Niall’s dad and Zayn is taking a nap. Niall’s sister in law is getting the baby ready to leave, changing the nappy, packing the diaper bag.

“Can you be a love and hold him for second, Liam, I’ve just got to…” She trails off, throwing the baby into his arms and absentmindedly walking around the room, stuffing things into the huge bag over her shoulder.

Liam looks down at the gurgling baby and his heart melts. Do all babies smell like this? Will his baby smell like this? The baby’s face scrunches up and a small cry comes out. Liam tries not to panic.

He sings nonsense words under his breath, trying to keep his voice low enough that the mother won’t hear—or worse, the lads who will make fun of him in a loving way – but loud enough that the tune will settle the baby. To his surprise, it works. Liam is a baby-whisperer. Liam speaks to babies in a way that babies respond. Liam was born to raise babies.

Then the baby starts to wail and his mother glares at him and snatches the child out of his hands without a second thought.

Liam’s disappointed in himself.

The rest of the tour in Ireland goes smoothly. They do a few interviews, radio and morning news shows. Liam and the lads are not surprised in the least that Niall is the darling of Ireland. In Ireland, their band name should just be Niall and One Direction, that’s how much attention he gets there.

That’s okay, though. Liam is selfishly glad for the spotlight to be on Niall and not on himself. No one pries into his business and he likes it that way. In fact, Liam considers himself to be winning their little game.

One Direction has been doing interviews since before the band had a record deal. In the early days of the X-Factor, they ironically didn’t have much direction, they just sat on a staircase and said what they felt like saying. These days, management prepped them for what they were allowed to say and do. It was Louis idea, it’s always Louis’ idea, to say little things that aren’t true. To blatantly lie about things just to see if anyone catches on.

Like the stupid questions interviewers always ask: which superpower would you like to have? Who’s your celebrity crush? Which band member would you date?

Liam usually says Louis, and he gives himself a point each time. You get a point for each lie that no one questions, and you have to start over if something you say causes a media sensation.

The lads have to start over quite a lot.

This round of interviews in Ireland, Liam sits back and just smirks through the entire interview. Because he’s owning this game. Lying by omission counts as points as discovered in the _Harry vs One Direction 2013_ killer decision. They even contracted out to get an objective opinion. Well, Ed. They asked Ed to decide.

So every little question asked by an interviewer from “How are you?” – (Nervous to be a dad, thanks) to “What’s your favorite track on this album?” – (Used to be “Midnight Memories” because of hanging out with my lads, now it’s going to be “Better than Words” because that’s how I’m feeling on the impeding birth of my son or daughter) – he’s racking up points and mentally tallying them to deliver to the band after they leave the country.

Zayn will back him up, he knows. He’s counting on it. That’s the only way they can keep themselves honest about the game. You can declare you won 300 points and if no one knows that you were lying, it doesn’t really count. So in the instrumental _Zayn vs. One Direction_ _2012_ decision, they compromised that if one member of the band can verify that you were lying, you get the points.

Sometimes the game is the only thing that gets Liam out of bed on interview days.

“So, Niall,” one interviewer asks in Dublin, “do any of the lads play instruments, besides you?”

“I can play the guitar a bit,” Liam says, miming playing the guitar in case the spoken sentence isn’t enough to get the interviewer’s attention off Niall. Darby or Stacy or whatever this woman’s name is under her fake blonde hair just nods nicely at him. She turns back to Niall and Liam holds up a finger on Louis’ back, letting him know he just scored a point.

Louis catches his eye and gives him a sarcastic look, like of course he knows Liam just scored a point. Louis has heard Liam play the guitar now – Niall taught him well. He’s been getting better and better and now he considers himself just a bit below Niall.

“And Louis taught me the basics of the piano,” Zayn speaks up, reaching behind Liam and placing his own finger into Louis’ back. Louis leans over Liam and shoots Zayn the exact same look he just gave Liam. Zayn took to the piano like Mozart or something. Shit is ridiculous. He’s still too embarrassed to play on stage, though.

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that Louis is technically the oldest.

.

..

…

..

.

Talking to Sophia on the phone just isn’t the same as in person. He’s happy to be back, Liam thinks, even if they have a few shows to do this week in London and a few heavy interview days before they move on to Europe at large. He pushes through the door with his suitcases.

She’s not home, Liam knows she went to visit her mother and break the news to her family. Liam encouraged her to go see her family. They knew the tour schedule was strict and knew he would only have a week in London before the tour went to Europe. But Liam agrees that she needs to go see her family in Wolverhampton. He never wants to be the reason she’s at odds with her family. Family is too important to Liam to ever want to be the reason someone else isn’t in a good place with their own. So when she says she’s thinking about going to visit her family, he tells her to go and then makes plans to be home a day early to give her a surprise.

He throws his bags in his room, then takes a quick shower, smiling at all the girlie products that now look like they belong there. He throws clean clothes on, glances at the still packed suit case and quickly scrambles to un-pack it. Normally, a packed suit case might sit there for a few days, depends on his mood, if he’s feeling guilty about leaving his apartment vacant for long periods of time or not, but now with other people to think about living with him, he cleans it up. He has to get into the routine of being courteous to other people in his family. His family. Sophia and the baby are his new family. He’s still overwhelmed.

“Leeyum? You ready, mate?” Zayn let himself in the door Liam left unlocked for just that purpose.

“You got the stuff?” He asks back to the footsteps he can hear approaching his room.

“Way to make it sound like a drug deal, Liam,” comes his best friend’s voice from the door frame. “But yeah, I do. See?” Zayn holds up a plastic container filled with his art supplies.

“Perfect. And did Paul get—“

“He sure did. It’s in the pantry, I already peeked in there. You ready?”

Liam looks at the unmade bed and gets an idea. “Yeah, be in there in a second.” He quickly makes the bed and then takes a picture of it. He sends it to Sophia, just to let her know he got home okay a day early and that he misses her.

Liam finds Zayn in the guest bedroom, contemplating the furniture. “We can keep the dresser, I think.” He says and Liam nods, because obviously Zayn knows better than him as he’s been staring at it for longer and all. “But the bed will have to go somewhere else to make room for the crib and diaper dispenser and the changing table.”

“There’s a changing table? What’s it change into?”

Zayn laughs easily. “It’s not a transformer, you idiot. It’s like a big stand to put the baby on to change their diaper.”

“There’s a whole table for that?” Liam asks incredulously. “Why can’t you just use the table or like the floor?”

The disdainful look he gets from Zayn is well worth the question. A beautiful face like Zayn’s should not ever contort to that expression. “And risk getting poo everywhere? Or pee? Eww, no thanks. Heathen.” He mumbles something else in Urdu but Liam is laughing too hard to catch it.

“So. We move the bed first?”

“Yeah,” Zayn puts his hands up to his face in a framing motion and closes one eye, his tongue poking out from behind his teeth, “and I think the crib should go there,” he points to a corner of the room. “So let’s paint the mural there.”

“I’ll call Paul to see if he can store the bed somewhere after we move it out of here.”

“Sounds good,” Zayn shrugs off his hoodie, “Let’s move this thing.”

It takes a few tries to get the bed through the door and a few trips. The mattresses go easily, but the frame takes a bit of careful maneuvering and Liam makes a mental note to thank the lads again for helping move it the first time. Zayn’s a bit stronger than he looks, but not by much. They’re sweating before the real work even begins.

“We gotta move the dresser out too.”

Liam swears. “But you said we could keep that.”

“Well, yeah. But it will be in our way while we’re painting. We don’t want to get paint on it. What if Sophia wants to use it for something else later?”

“Like what?” Liam asks, genuinely wondering why she would want it. It’s just a dresser. And it’s kind of ugly.

“I don’t know, mate,” Zayn says and Liam hears a bit of fond exasperation in his voice. “Girls are weird about what things they want to keep and what they want to get rid of. That’s why we can’t dump the bed. Besides, you probably won’t always live in this flat. What if you move to a house or something and you need the dresser? Boom, you already have one.”

Liam shakes his head. “Alright, I trust your superior judgment on what women want. Should we move it by the bed, do you think?”

There’s a bit of room between the sofa and the bed parts they’d moved out there, enough room to have a pathway from the door to the bedrooms and kitchen. Luckily this time it takes only one trip and two rest stops to move it completely.

“Where’s the paint?” Liam asks Zayn who nods to the pantry off the kitchen.

“Paul wanted it to be out of the way in case she came home early or something. Didn’t want to ruin the surprise.”

“Right.” Liam grabs the paint cans out of the pantry and meets Zayn in the guest bedroom. “So what now?”

“What, like I’m the room painting expert?”

“You’re the painting expert. That’s like a least at degree closer to room painter than I am. At least you’ve handled paint before.”

“Flatterer.”

“Should we google it? I don’t want to mess this up.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“I just don’t want to fuck up the first thing I try to do for my kid, you know?” Liam tries and fails to keep the vulnerability out of his voice.

Zayn shakes his head and gives him an impromptu hug. “You aren’t going to mess up being a dad, Liam,” he whispers into his ear. Liam struggles to breathe. He hasn’t realized how much the anxiety is still weighing on him. He’s terrified to mess up. He’s terrified his kid will hate him for screwing everything up. He has visions of his kid in therapy in a few years blaming their dad for his or her life going terribly wrong and some therapist with thick glasses and a red nose nodding along and agreeing that he was the root of all his kid’s problems. “You’re going to be a great father, Payno. Really. And if you start to suck, your kid’s godfather will kick your arse and step up, okay? You’re going to be fine, and your kid’s going to be fine.”

“Right.” Liam nods against Zayn’s neck, pulls away slowly and just looks at his best mate for a minute. Zayn has always had such faith in him. Zayn’s got his hands on Liam’s shoulders and it keeps him grounded, like the weight of Zayn’s hands make his words true and in this moment Liam agrees. He trusts Zayn to be honest. He trusts Zayn.

He takes a deep breath and starts googling DIY painting. An hour later they have an impromptu floor covering made from an old sheet set, matching marks of mint green paint on their faces, and they’re halfway through Liam’s “Paint That Shit” play list.

An hour after that, the walls have two coats of green paint on them. The baseboards and ceiling are clear of stray paint splashes, and they take a quick dinner break. Dinner turns into a Fifa match, which turns into two beers for Liam, and a nap on the couch in the crowded family room.

The nap turns into a bit of a small sleep and four hours later Liam wakes up to a mostly dark room freaking out with no idea where he is. It takes a second for his heart to start to calm down when he realizes he fell asleep on the couch with the telly still on. He rubs his eyes and sits up, feeling like he just came back from the dead. He hears music coming from the guest bedroom. The nursery. Liam should really start calling it the nursery.

He pads down the hallway silently, his bare feet cold on the hardwood floor. He hears Zayn singing along to the music and Liam pauses in the threshold, taking in the sight of his best friend with just his trekkies on, painting a mural on his child’s bed room wall by just the light of the lamp. Liam studies the painting. He hadn’t asked Zayn in advance what he was going to paint. He didn’t try to tell him what to paint – he knows better than that. Zayn paints what Zayn wants to paint and that’s just how it works.

But his paintings always come from the heart and they’re always beautiful.

Zayn really outdid himself this time. There’s a large tree dominating the room, half finished, roughly outlined in a dark brown. One branch sticks out farther than any of the others, and it’s there that Zayn is concentrating on. He’s painted a baby koala in the warm embrace of its parent. They are cartoony in Zayn’s style complete with matching looks of adoration. Liam loves them immediately.

He snaps a quick picture on his phone, and then another of just Zayn because the look of focus on his face is too adorable to pass up.

“Did you know koalas have two heads on their penises?”

Zayn jumps half a foot in the air, almost dropping his honest to God palette on the floor. “What the hell, Liam?”

“I just wondered if you knew that before you chose to paint koalas?”

Zayn shakes his head, but it’s not an answer, it’s him trying to calm himself down, shake off the surprise. He stretches his arms, his elbow popping in a way that worries Liam and makes him want to lecture Zayn on future arthritis if he keeps it up.

“No, I didn’t know that about koalas, but I would have painted them anyway.” He responds, turning back to the mural before turning around again to move the lamp a bit too the left to give him better light.

Liam pulls a chair away from the kitchen table into the room, takes a seat and settles in to watch Zayn work. They let the music surround them, and Liam silently watches Zayn’s hands fly over the wall. He works quickly and efficiently. Zayn once told him that if he goes any slower he starts to over think things and then they turn to shit.

Liam is humming along to Beyoncé when Zayn interrupts the silence. “You like koalas, right?”

“You know I like koalas,” Liam’s voice is quiet and low, barely audible over the music, “Even when I had that panicked day when we thought the koala we held in Australia gave me chlamydia.”

Zayn smiles fondly. “They were quite cute, weren’t they?”

“Why’d you pick koalas? Any particular reason besides knowing I like them?”

The paintbrush flicks over the eyebrows of the baby koala. “They’re marsupials, yeah? Like, the mothers have pouches specially designed to protect their young. Your kid is going to be protected. Like, there are lots of animals that could mean protection too, but… I want your kid to be comforted. And, like, a pouch just for protection and milk or whatever? That sounds like the best of both worlds.”

“You love my kid too, don’t you?”

Zayn’s eyes crinkles when he turns around to smile at Liam. The light of the lamp makes his olive skin glow. “I take being godfather very seriously.” Liam recognizes that he brushed the question off.

“So it’s just because you’re godfather? You’d be like this to James Cordon’s kid if you were made godfather?”

Zayn’s expression turns mysterious, Liam can’t quite read it. “Course not. This is your kid. And you’re Liam.”

He turns back around to finish painting the koalas and Liam knows that’s the most he’s going to get out of Zayn. He watches him finish the mural by the morning light.

Liam makes breakfast. It’s going to be a long day, with a show on little sleep and they are going to need fortitude.

.

..

…

..

.

In between sound check and dressing for the show, Zayn helps Liam pick out baby furniture online to be delivered the next morning.

Zayn offers to help set up the furniture. “I need to do this bit by meself, I think.” Liam says, and Zayn nods, saying nothing more on the subject.

They play an amazing show at Wembley Stadium. One of their twitter questions asks if they can jump rope. They use a random piece of rope from backstage to demonstrate that they can, in fact jump rope. Liam smokes everybody else by doing fancy stuff that he learned in his boxing days and he feels smug for about a minute until he falls on his face in front of thousands of people.

Harry smacks a big kiss on his cheek to cheer him up. Niall pretends to box him and loses dramatically. Louis pinches him in the exact same spot during four different songs. He’s going to have a bruise.

They have a blast.

Liam doesn’t go out that night. Harry invites him out to a club with Grimmy and a few of their hipster friends. Louis and Niall are going out too, they try to drag Zayn with them, but give up pretty easily because everyone can see the deep purple bruises below his eyes from no sleep the night before. Especially now that they’ve taken off their make-up.

Liam just says he has something he has to do the next morning and that he’d go out the day after Sophia gets back. Niall sniggers under his breath and says something about “married people sex” before pulling Louis into a head lock and asking where they were meeting up.

Not trusting himself to drive this tired, Liam calls a cab to take him back to his flat. He’s going to the stadium again the next night for another show, he figures he can leave his car there and pick it up tomorrow.

He falls on top of the still made bed from the picture he sent Sophia and realizes as he’s falling asleep that he hasn’t slept in his bed yet and he’d been home for over a day. He feels cold all night.

The next morning he gets right to it. True to the word of the website he bought the furniture from, they deliver at 9:00 exactly. The delivery guys don’t recognize him and Liam sighs in relief. He’s never been so glad that forty year old men aren’t into their music.

The men place the boxes in the nursery and leave him to it. He gives them a generous tip and refrains from pointing out the koalas and how good they are.

Hours later he curses himself for not letting Zayn help. He eats a quick lunch, realizing he skipped breakfast, and takes a picture to send to Zayn so he’ll know how hopeless he is without him.

Zayn sends a picture of Perrie’s foot in reply and Liam doesn’t text him back.

By 3:00, everything looks perfect and he has an hour to kill until Sophia is set to get home. He congratulates himself on a job well done. He takes another picture, this time of the completed room. His favorite piece of furniture is the rocking chair. He kips a beer out of the refrigerator and sits down, rocking back and forth and imaging himself in a few months with his baby in his arms, singing lullabies and changing nappies.

He wonders if his parents felt like this before they had kids. He thinks of all the parents he knows and wonders if they did.

Sophia comes home a bit early. He runs to the door, greets her with a kiss to the cheek. “Hey babe, I missed you.” She looks tired and the smile on her lips doesn’t quite reach her eyes. Pregnancy must be terrible. Morning sickness is not something to fuck around with, Liam knows this from the internet.

“Hi there,” she says. “I missed you too.”

He takes her bags out of her hands and places them off to the side, glad Paul found a storage unit for the bed on short notice. “I got a surprise for you,” he says, reaching for her hand.

“Okay, what is it? Ice cream?” She lets him steer her away from the front door.

“Not ice cream,” he says, pausing to kiss her on the mouth. She sinks into the kiss, and just when it’s starting to deepen, he pulls away. “The surprise first, my lady.”

“Okay, surprise first, then back to that.”

Liam feels the anticipation build in his stomach. He’s nervous, but that’s fine, he spends most of his life nervous for various reasons. He’s used to it. He comes to the closed nursery door, and smiles back at Sophia. “It’s in here.”

She looks confused, her brow wrinkles, “In here? What is it?”

“See for yourself,” Liam says and he preens a bit on the inside for saying something that smooth to her. Sometimes it’s still hard to talk to her, after pining for her for years. He’s still used to being the lame dork who wanted her so badly before he went to the X-Factor the second time.

He watches her step into the room, looking for surprise to cross over her face. He doesn’t see what he’s looking for. Yes, there’s shock and surprise, but it’s not in the good way.

He feels his own face fall. “You don’t like it?”

“I just,” she begins, not looking at him, but at the details of the room, the mural, the white crib set up in the corner, “I wanted to talk to you about this.”

“About the baby’s room? I’m sorry if you wanted to decorate it, I just… I got ahead of myself and I wanted to give you one less thing to worry about and I—“

“No, Liam, not the room. This isn’t about the room. The room is lovely,” she touches his face and Liam calms. “You and Zayn?” she guesses, he confirms her guess with a nod, “did a perfect job of the room.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

“It’s about the baby,” She’s still holding his face and looking directly into his eyes.

Liam can’t breathe. “What about the baby?”

Her thumb brushes up and down his face, like she’s petting his beard. “I lost the baby, Liam.”

Liam steps back and runs into the rocking chair. He stares at it for a moment. He thinks Sophia is saying something, but he can’t hear her. He can only hear his blood pounding in his ears. Darkness closes in on the edges of his vision and Liam just can’t think. He can’t make a thought form. There’s pressure in his head, and his brings his hands up to try to keep his head from exploding inward. He doesn’t understand what’s happening to him and it’s scaring him.

His hands whip out and knock the rocking chair over. He didn’t mean to do that, but it felt good. It felt so good. He kicks the crib next to it. It doesn’t do anything so he kicks it again, harder, right in the joint that he spent forty five minutes putting together this morning. The joint splinters, and the bottom half of the bed collapses. Liam feels a sick sense of happiness at the destruction.

He feels her hand on his shoulder, trying to get him to stop. But he can’t stop. His baby is gone. There’s a black hole in his heart right now and the only thing his brain, heart, and body can agree on is complete destruction of the room that screams “Baby” so that it doesn’t say that anymore. If his baby doesn’t get to use it, then there is no purpose for it.

The crib is in splinters before he knows what’s happening. He slips on a piece of wood and lands on the floor. Suddenly, he’s exhausted and his lungs are spent. His heartbeat is loud in his ears and his limbs feel so heavy and the thought of trying to stand up sounds like trying to climb Mt. Everest. He crumbles into himself.

He’s sobbing without knowing it and there are hands on his face, wiping the tears and snot off his face. Sophia sits on the floor next to him, places his head in her lap and they just sit there, surrounded by pieces of crib and rocking chair and Liam’s heart.

“What’s your passcode, Liam?” Her voice is soft and forcibly calm.

“Passocode? What?”

“Into your phone. What’s the passcode?”

“2229. Why?”

“I’m going to call in some back up.”

Liam pulls his hands up over his face, “Only Zayn knows. I didn’t tell the other lads.”

“Do you want them to come anyway?”

“Yes. But they shouldn’t.” He feels small. He feels like an electron, tiny and negative and buzzing.

Liam looks up at her face while she calls Zayn from his phone. She’s perfectly composed and Liam feels more self-conscious of his breakdown in front of her. She’s had more time to deal with it though. Liam wonders why she didn’t tell him. She probably didn’t want to tell him over the phone. He didn’t exactly give her much time when she got home, either.

Seconds later in Liam’s mind, there are more hands holding him. Zayn pulls him up to his feet. “Alright, mate?”

Liam raises an eyebrow.

“Touché.” Zayn turns to Sophia. “What happened?”

“I told him I lost the baby and he went crazy.”

“You lost the baby?” Zayn asks quietly, and Liam is just aware enough to recognize him trying to control his own reaction. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“It wasn’t—Oh, um, yeah, thank you.”

“Shit,” Zayn says, looking at his watch, “we have a show in like an hour.”

“Can you snap him out of it?” Sophia asks.

Zayn’s tense, Liam can feel it in the air. “You’re his girlfriend, Sophia. Did _you_ try to snap him out of it, or did you just call me the second he wasn’t breaking shit anymore?”

“Hey,” Sophia’s pissed off, “I was scared for my safety. You didn’t see him. He wasn’t all there. He just wouldn’t stop. It’s like something took over his body or something.”

“Yeah, heart break.” Zayn runs his fingers through Liam’s hair just like he likes. “He couldn’t wait to be a dad. He loves the baby. Of course he’s affected.”

“I lost the baby, too, Zayn. You don’t get to use that against me.”

“Did you, Sohpia? Did you _lose_ the baby? Is that the story we’re going with here? Because I overheard a very interesting phone conversation the other day. And I was going to give you the benefit of the doubt. A lot of people can be overwhelmed by being thrown into parenthood. I mean, I saw how Liam reacted. But, really Sophia?” Liam peeks up at Sophia, not understanding this conversation. Her face is white, pale white and scared.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Really? _Really_? Do I need to call Perrie and ask her? Because she won’t lie to me and you know that. She specifically said that she wouldn’t lie to me if I asked. So I didn’t. But you need to tell him. And you need to tell him right now.”

The anger in Zayn’s voice surprises Liam, he has never in the years of their friendship heard Zayn speak with actual rage, it scares Liam a little bit. But the fingers in his hair continue to gently caress his scalp.

“Zayn, let it go for now. Just look at him.”

“You look at him!” Zayn yells, spit flying out of his mouth. “You did this to him. This is on you. You made a choice that led to this and then called _me_ to come, what, clean it up for you?”

Zayn snorts. “Tell him right now. He needs to see you for who you are. And his heart is just going to break twice, might as well break it once instead of waiting around for the other shoe to drop.”

“I really don’t think—“

“Sophia,” Liam says then, and he didn’t realize he was going to speak. His mind is clearing and he needs to know what’s going on. “Sophia, please tell me.”

She looks him straight in the eye, her head held high and his held in Zayn’s hands. “I didn’t just lose the baby, Liam.” She bites her lower lip in the same way that used to drive him crazy. Now it just makes him impatient. “I chose to have an abortion.”

The bottom drops out of Liam’s world for the second time that day.

“But, why? We were going to have a baby. We were so happy.”

“No,” she shakes her head. “You were so happy. You were happy to be having a baby. You were happy to be a dad. I’m not… I’m not ready to be a mum, Liam.”

His already melted brain cannot function. “Why did you lie to me? Why weren’t you just honest with me from the beginning? It was always going to be your choice, Soph, but you _lied_. You know that’s the one thing I can’t handle.”

“Because I didn’t want you to hate me.”

“Then I don’t believe you accomplished your goal.”

“Liam,” Zayn says quietly and guilt creeps in.

“Sorry, that was too far,” he concedes, “I don’t hate you Sophia. But I certainly don’t trust you and never will again. I think you know that.”

“But Liam,” she tries to interject.

“What?” Liam stands to his feet. He needs to do this on his own. “What can you say right now that’s going to make this better? How are you going to explain why you would lie to me willingly and then still not give me all of you. We’ve had this talk, haven’t we? You don’t trust me with anything about yourself. You don’t tell me about things that matter to you. And now I know you certainly never deserved my trust. What lie can erase all of that and make all this better? Hmm?”

“I get it. You cared more about the baby than about me.”

“Were you seriously jealous of the baby?”

“You were constantly talking to the baby. Not me. All you could talk about was the baby.”

“Because we finally had something to share that was ours and not borrowed from the other. You were never going to be a part of the band and that’s a huge part of my life. You weren’t there from the beginning, but I was willing to let you in. The baby, though, the baby was only for you and me, made by us, and up to us who we chose to share the baby with.”

“You shared the baby with Zayn without telling me.”

“I told my best mate because I was overwhelmed. I didn’t tell anyone else, not even my family. But I needed to vent to someone who wasn’t you, because you’re shit at comforting people. Example, ten minutes ago.” He gestures to the destroyed room around them. Liam’s just glad he couldn’t destroy the koalas.

“You know what?” Liam says, so far beyond done with the conversation and passed ready to be out of her presence. “Just whatever. You can have the flat because we let your lease run out. I’ll be by tomorrow to get my things.”

She nods, her lips pursed.

Liam meets Zayn’s eyes, “Is it cool if I stay at yours?”

“Sure, mate.”

“Good. Thanks. Let me just grab some essentials and then we have to get to the stadium, right?”

Zayn looks at his phone. “Yeah, might have to take the bag in with us, no time to stop by my place.”

They don’t say anything else until Liam’s stuff is in the cab between them and they’re on their way to Wembley Stadium again. “You gonna be okay for the show, Leeyum? We can say you’re violently ill.”

Liam shakes his head. “I’ll be okay to perform. I need to get my head put on straight though. You got headphones?”

“Yeah, here,” Zayn hands him one ear bud and they spend the rest of the cab ride listening to the angriest music Zayn has on his iPhone and ignoring the mess still on Liam’s face.

.

..

…

..

.

The show doesn’t go well, not to Liam’s surprise. He knows before he’s launched onto the stage that he’s not going to do well and for the first time in his career, he doesn’t give a fuck.

The audience should be glad he’s sober for this because he sure as hell is not planning on being sober for long afterward.

The lads figure out quickly that something is wrong. Zayn, bless him, covers for him, sticking close and nudging him when it looks like he’s about to miss an entrance. The crowd eats it up.

Harry, for his own part, does his Harry thing and charms the audience. Somehow it’s _more_ tonight. He’s on fire, he’s eating bananas out of girls’ hands, he’s having water fights with Niall and slipping on the evidence into Louis’ arms. Basically, he’s distracting the audience away from Liam’ permanent scowl. But Liam can’t help it – he’s just _pissed off_. He’s like a raging bull who’s seen red one too many times.

He sings his lines and he tries to fake a smile. Louis catches his eye and looks quickly to the jumbotron so Liam can see that his fake smile looks a whole hell of a lot like a grimace. Liam stops trying after that.

He feels fingers on his back when they stand in their V-formation, a solid unit at Harry’s back while he solos. Liam expects them to be Zayn’s, the only one who knows what’s going on.

But they belong to Niall, just a small touch of solidarity. Just a simple _hey we know something is going on and we love you_. Liam feels no malice or blame in the touch at all and he is once again blown away by love for the four boys around him on stage. He couldn’t have landed with a better crew.

They tease, they joke around, they pull crap pranks on each other and fart in the bus with the windows shut tightly, but when shit goes down, they’re at your back.

Liam cries during “Story of My Life” that night, but if anyone notices, they don’t say anything. He’s sure it’ll be on twitter later anyway with a hideous hashtag like #cheerupLiam or something. Whatever. He’s not getting on twitter for like a month.

They finish the show to cheers and Liam is thankful that it’s over. He’s never been glad to see the end of a concert.

He has been happy to see the end of a bottle of liquor though. He would like to see the end of another one tonight.

Without acknowledging it, Louis and Niall offer to take him out. More of a demand than an invitation, actually. Zayn watches the exchange with a small frown on his face, but he doesn’t try to stop them. He just grabs Liam’s overnight bag and takes off with it.

They hit up the best clubs and Liam lets go. His boys have his back and he needs this. He needs just one night to forget that his world is crumbling around him. He dances for hours with anyone that comes near him – he has an arse grinding on him and a pair of hips tight on his own arse at one point and he has no idea about genders or identifying features like hair or eyes, let alone names.

He thinks he tries to kiss Niall at one point, but it’s not his fault Niall turned his head at the last second and he got lips instead of cheek. Liam loves his bro, he would kiss him if he had to. Because that’s what bros do. They love each other. Unconditionally. Unlike certain long-time crushes that turn out to be not what he thought they were.

Life can be funny like that.

The night is all a blur of hazy lights and grabby hands and before he knows it, Louis is throwing him into a cab and jumping in behind him, and then they’re outside his building and he’s just remembered that he doesn’t live there anymore and, Oh God, he can’t go in there. Why would they take him there?

“Louis,” he says, his head moving independently of his conscious control. “Louis, let’s go to Zayn’s.”

“It’s late, Liam. He’s asleep.”

“He’s always sleeping, that one.”

“C’mon, Liam, we’re at your flat, you gotta get out.”

Liam shakes his head a bit more voraciously than he intended and consequently feels a bit green for a moment. “This isn’t my flat, Louis. I don’t have a flat anymore. Take me to Zayn’s.”

“What do you mean this isn’t your flat? I’ve been here a hundred times?” The cabbie is starting to get impatient about them not getting out of the car. Especially with the few paparazzi standing with their cameras propped up against the cab windows.

“She lives here now, not me.”

“Yeah, we just helped Sophia move in, mate, I don’t see the problem, here.” Louis’ using his Placating Harry voice and Liam kind of resents it.

“She lives here and I don’t. I live nowhere. As of this afternoon, I don’t live here.” Liam really can’t say it any more plainly than that.

“Shit.” Louis mumbles something to the cabbie who visibly calms down, eyeing the running meter with a maniacal glint in his eye. “No wonder.”

Liam nods, knowing that Louis is trying to put the pieces together and still isn’t coming up with the correct answer because he doesn’t have the right equation. “Zayn’s please.”

“You sure you don’t want to come round mine?”

“Zayn’s please, Jeeves.” Cabbie does not look amused, but Louis does.

“Right,” he says, settling back into his seat and making sure both their seat belts are done. “I know better to argue with a drunk Liam Payne. Zayn’s it is.”

True to his word, Louis has the cab bring them to Zayn’s and maneuvers him out of the car. Liam decidedly does not laugh at Louis’ small frame trying to support his own and doesn’t bother letting Louis know that he’s sobered up enough to walk on his own. This is way funnier. Louis needs a taste of his own medicine once in a while.

They knock on Zayn’s door. Louis gets his phone out, ready to call Zayn multiple times until he answers, murmuring, “lazy bugger” under his breath already, when the door swings open to their surprise. Like Zayn sat there waiting for the bell to ring and Liam to come home.

Liam doesn’t see whatever expression passes between Zayn and Louis, because he falls into the hall, catching himself on the ugly end table thing that Zayn says is artistic and Perrie says is for keys.

“Well, c’mon then, mate, let’s get you to bed.”

Louis yawns out a good night and turns tail with a promise to see them tomorrow. Liam guesses that more goes on between Zayn and Louis – but they’re careful to hide it from him and it’s not like it’s a huge secret that they’re both concerned about him. Fuck, he’s concerned about him.

“Zayn.”

Zayn’s arm comes around his neck so he’s hugging him sideways. He gives him quick, heartfelt noogie, and then straightens up to help support him. Liam is nice enough not to do to Zayn what he did to Louis. Zayn’s been a saint after all.

“Yeah, it’s me, you big lump. Bedtime.” They start walking towards the stairs to the master bedroom when Zayn pauses. “Water first.”

Liam snorts. “Already drank water. Tastes like metal.” Zayn doesn’t care about the taste, apparently, because he’s pouring a glass for Liam and shoving it against his lips. “Ugh, hate it.”

“Drink the water. Trust me, you’ll thank me in the morning.”

He drinks the water slowly, one sip at a time.

“Have a lot to thank you for.” He says between gulps, the cup around his mouth making him sound robotic and echo-y. “You’re the best. The earth’s best friend for a lad. You should have a t-shirt that says that. I’m getting g you a t-shirt for your birthday.”

Zayn gives up on the water. He puts the glass down on the counter amongst the other dirty dishes he’ll get around to eventually and takes up Liam’s arm again.

“You better get me more’n a t-shirt, cheap arse.”

Liam takes some offense to that. Zayn picks the water glass back up and shoves it back at him.

“My arse is not cheap,” He says around the cup again, “‘S expensive like a fine wine. Or like a rollex. It’s the rollex of the arse world. Out of your price range, mister.”

Zayn shakes his head, his cheeks a bit red from the exertion of carrying part of Liam. “Drink it all, Liam.”

“Don’t want to.”

“Well you have to.” The first hint of impatience colors Zayn’s voice. “We do things we don’t want to do all the time. The only difference this time is that it’s me asking and it’s not for money or because you’re obligated to.” Liam thinks about it for a second and downs the rest of the glass. “Good, now bed.”

“Bed sounds good.” They somehow find their way into the bedroom and Liam collapses atop the bed, beyond done with this day. God, Zayn has the world’s most perfect bed. The very height of comfort, down mattress, silk sheets. There’s a reason Liam always wants to crash at Zayn’s.

“’S already warm. Feels nice. Never leaving your bed, ever. You have the best bed, I’m not kidding.”

He feels tentative hands on his boots, pulling the laces loose and then slipping them off his feet. His socks follow, and it’s only then that he realizes that Zayn is helping him undress. He suddenly feels very intimate here.

“Lift up.” Zayn pulls his jeans down as far as he can, the skinniness of them making that very difficult to do. Liam flips over and un-does his own belt and buttons. “God, you’re heavy.”

Liam pulls his shirt over his head,“Oi, you calling me fat?” He looks down at his bare stomach. It looks pretty flat to him. Could be better, but it could also be worse. Sophia didn’t seem to mind it. “‘S rude.”

Zayn smiles cheekily, shedding his shirt. “You’re heavy with rippling muscle. That better?”

“A little.” Zayn throws the duvet over them and Liam burrows into it, “Now tell me I’m pretty and we’re good.” He speaks into the bed, unsure if Zayn will even be able to hear what nonsense with how muffled it comes out.

“Of course you’re pretty, Leeyum.” Zayn rubs a hand along Liam’s scalp, petting him like a dog. “All the little boys and girls think so.”

He feels a genuine smile break out on his face for the first time since before the concert. “Prettier than Bieber?”

Liam turns his face towards Zayn so he can see his reaction. “Way prettier. Not even in the same category.”

To his shame, he blushes.

“Thanks.”

They lie in silence for a long time. Liam flirts with the edges of sleep, but the day catches up to him. He keeps seeing flashes of the broken crib on the ground, Sophia’s pale face twisting in rage, his arms flipping the rocking chair over. Behind it all, he sees the parent koala and the baby and it hits Liam that Zayn didn’t paint some random animal and a baby, and he didn’t draw a baby koala and its mother – he drew _Liam_ and the baby. The baby that will never have a name or a sex or any moniker other than “baby” in his head and in the real world and Liam feels the sobs rise to the surface of his troubles waters for the second time that day.

“What’s wrong?”

So Zayn wasn’t asleep. Liam tries to calm himself down but he can’t.

“I tried to forget, Zayn.” He sees the broken crib behind closed eyes. “She forgot so easily. But I just couldn’t.”

“I know. I know.” Zayn reaches across the divide between them and pulls him into the cradle of his embrace. His wiry arms feel safe and Liam melts into being the little spoon.

“I’m not going to be a dad, Zaynie. I’m not going to get to be a father.”

“You’ll be a great dad.” He feels Zayn’s nose nudge his neck. It’s comforting in a way that words can’t be. “One day you’ll meet someone who wants you to be their kid’s father for all the right reasons and you’ll have tons of kids. A whole brood of ‘em.”

Liam waits hours to respond. To get control. To say the right thing.

“And you’ll be godfather?” Zayn lets out a breath audibly. Everything he does is audible, this close to Liam, his arms the only things holding him together.

“I’ll fight Harry to the death. It’ll be a proper duel. Swords, pitols, and shit. His choice.”

Liam rolls his eyes and elbows Zayn playfully. “Harry’s a pacifist.” It comes out a croak.

It’s crazy, but Liam can _feel_ Zayn grinning into his skin. Maybe it’s the vibrations or maybe it’s from knowing him for so long that he can hear it in his voice, but he knows in his bones that Zayn is smiling.

“Yeah, that’s why I chose to fight him.” Zayn huffs a breath against the sensitive skin under his ear, his right arm a length of steel against Liam’s stomach. Liam feels safe. “What, you think I can take Louis when a baby is involved? No way.”

Liam slips into sleep with one word on his tongue, “Thanks.”

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The next morning Liam wakes up to a hangover. He drinks two cups of water left on the nightstand for him and goes back to sleep. He’s not kidding about never leaving Zayn’s bed.

The second time he wakes up, it’s noon and Liam remembers before he opens his eyes. _Fuck_.

He gets out of bed, Zayn’s side cold, grabs one of his own shirts from Zayn’s drawers, and gets dressed. His head is still pounding, but if he doesn’t do this now, he probably won’t ever.

Zayn left a note on the counter saying he went to have brunch with Perrie. Liam rolls his eyes because Zayn loves brunch. Liam’s enraged for a micro-second – how could Zayn leave him to do this on his own?

A breath later he revises that thought. This is something he needs to do on his own. He can’t keep relying on Zayn. People go through break ups all the time. Liam just hasn’t gone through many, he’s still new to this. God, he never wants to get _good_ at break ups.

He steals a granola bar from Zayn’s kitchen, puts his trainers on, and exits the flat. A quick call to Paul later, he’s meeting a moving company outside his old flat. According to twitter, Sophia’s gone back to Wolverhampton to visit her parents, so he knows this is a good time to grab his stuff. He tries not to look at her twitter page for too long, but he can’t help but notice there is no sign of the break up. It’s still new, he tells himself. After all, he hadn’t said anything about it either.

It takes a few hours to get all his stuff in the truck, but most of that time is Liam stuffing random things in boxes and handing them off.

The door to the nursery is closed. He can’t bring himself to go near it until the last run through for the movers.

Sophia will have no need for the crib or changing table or the rocking chair. He has the movers pack what can be salvaged from his freak-out. Someone will need them at some point. Or he can always donate them to charity. He wants anyone but Sophia to have them. She doesn’t deserve to have their baby’s furniture when she decided without him not to have their baby.

Liam shakes his head, trying to clear it of thoughts like that. He doesn’t want to be angry. He considers himself pretty liberal. He knows that it’s always a woman’s choice. It is. He’s not mad about the abortion itself, he’s mad that Sophia lied to him and was perfectly happy to keep lying to him about something so big. He doesn’t want to be angry with her, but there’s a sense of justice or revenge or something burning under his skin. She took this from him, he thinks, looking around the still-destroyed nursery. And there are no consequences for her except that they broke up.

His baby never even got a name. No one knew about it and no one will. Liam is overwhelmed. The baby affected his life so significantly and in such a short period of time and the world won’t ever know because of Sophia.

He can’t allow that. He can’t allow the baby no say in the world, not when he can do something in his power to acknowledge the change wrought in him from just the possibility of fatherhood.

He feels a hurricane brewing in him, deep in his troubled waters. The winds of change kick up and Liam starts plotting. He looks to the koalas and remembers Zayn painting them with just a soft light, green paint spattered all over his bare chest, and music playing just loudly enough to drown out the hum of his own thoughts. Liam smiles bitterly.

He takes a picture of the koalas and uploads it to twitter with the caption that it’s his favorite painting in the entire world. He doesn’t tag Zayn.

The movers have cleared out and are on their way back with Sophia’s bed he put in storage. Liam doesn’t need to be there for that. He carefully squeezes the key to the flat off his key ring and places it under the mat for them to get back in.

It’s time to get down to business. He has a song to write.


	3. Chapter 3

It turns out writing a song by oneself is both easier and harder than Liam thought all at once. He has plenty of raw emotions to draw from, but he knows he lacks the musical experience to instinctively know what will work and what will not. He makes a lot of mistakes.

But that’s okay because the only way to learn is by mistakes.

It kind of scares Liam, how the _need_ to write and finish the song burns so brightly inside him. They have two more shows in London, then a few days off before they travel to North America. Liam wants to be able to show the lads his song before then.

He promised Zayn he would tell them about the baby, and he will. He wants to be able to explain to them how the baby and how things ending with Sophia affected him. He knows Louis put the pieces together about his break up with Sophia together. Which means that Harry knows and probably Niall too. They’ve been careful about leaving Niall out since the X-Factor house. There are few worse feelings in the world than to know that you made Niall feel bad. It’d be better to kick a sick puppy.

Liam develops a routine. On nights when Perrie is over, Liam stays at Louis’ or Niall’s. He doesn’t want to disturb them from their engaged people sex, he tells himself that’s why he gives them space.

He admits to himself on the short drive over to Niall’s that he doesn’t want to see a happy couple in love.

He wakes up every morning, does whatever interview or scheduled appearance he has in London to the best of his ability, racking up points in their game (he’s keeping track on a note in his iPhone). When his obligations are done, he goes to one of the lads’ empty flats with his guitar and writes.

He has the chorus more or less by the end of the first day. The verses are what are giving him trouble. Soon enough he perfects those too and there are only two days left of their vacation before the tour leaves for Toronto.

Liam wakes up in Zayn’s heavenly bed and decides today is the day. He shakes Zayn awake, and calls an emergency One Direction meeting.

He texts everybody and tells them to meet at Louis’ house – the midway point between everybody. Harry seems concerned, but says he can show up whenever, he just had lunch planned with Grimmy. Niall says he was planning on spending all day in bed in just his pants, but he’s happy to meet the lads, not so happy to put on trousers, though.

Louis just sends him a smiley face. Liam supposes that means he’s okay with Liam offering his home up for the meeting. Well, Louis has never been shy about letting you know if he isn’t happy with something.

They arrange between themselves for about 5:00 and Liam is voted in charge of getting food, since he called the meeting. Liam agrees in their group message and makes the executive decision for curry, knowing that finding a good curry in America is like finding an honest to God leprechaun. No one objects.

Zayn is barely responsive in the group message, but Liam sees him taking peeks with one eye at his phone.

“You can go back to sleep now.”

“There’s no point,” he says, burying his face under his pillow.

Liam’s hand finds the hairline on Zayn’s neck, scratching softly. “Sorry to do this so early, but I just kind of had to make sure it gets done today.”

“Make sure what gets done?” Zayn asks, but it’s more of a purr. Liam sees a panther in his mind’s eye, stretching beside him and he snorts a little. Just a little.

“I want to make sure the lads know about the baby and Sophia before we leave.” Liam moves his fingers higher, into Zayn’s hair. “I have something to show you guys, too.”

“’S it a big plate of breakfast? Because I could get behind that, mate.”

“No, but breakfast can be arranged.”

Liam kisses Zayn on the forehead and jumps out of bed, throwing a pair of joggers over his boxers. He’s not sure at this point if the joggers are his or Zayn’s. Either way, he doesn’t care.

They eat breakfast together in front of the TV, watching the news and talking over it until they see themselves on a morning show that they recorded yesterday. Neither of them move to change the channel.

They watch the whole thing, counting points out loud. It’s the most fun Liam has in ages.

.

..

…

..

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The emergency meeting goes something like this:

Liam and Zayn arrive early, mostly because Liam called the meeting and it would be rude to keep everyone waiting on him. Liam drags his guitar behind him, knowing that he brings it enough places these days that the lads won’t think it too strange. And Zayn comes early, because why would they travel separately? Also, Liam might have had to force him, or he’d be inevitably late and the butterflies would just build that much more before he tells them the truth and then plays his song. He feels strangely shy.

Niall and Harry walk in a couple of minutes later, still early by their standards. The food shows up a scant few minutes later, and Liam helps Harry in the kitchen, getting plates and utensils and everything. Liam has to ask Harry a few times where things are. Harry just points and goes back to whatever he’s doing. Liam shakes his head. Harry knows Louis’ kitchen better than anyone else.

“Harry, where are the glasses? They were above the sink last time I was here,” Liam asks, getting a bit frustrated having to ask literally every time he tries to find something else.

“I put them in the cabinet next to the oven,” Harry says over his shoulder, balancing all the knives and forks, “Louis and I didn’t like them above the sink. Nothing should go above the sink, don’t you agree?”

Feeling himself rolling his eyes, Liam just agrees with him to avoid an argument. Honestly, who cares if there is anything above the sink or not?

Niall commandeered the telly while they were getting the food ready and now they’re watching some show Liam has never heard of and Niall is laughing like a loon. They all eat quickly, no one saying it, but all dying of curiosity. He sees it in their eyes – they want to know why he called this meeting. Even Zayn eyes him sideways, no doubt wondering what it is Liam has to show him.

“So I know you all know that Sophia and I broke up,” he begins, turning the telly off and looking at each of them in turn, amused that they all somehow ended up in one big circle. They nod sheepishly, all trying not to look at Louis, like Liam might be mad that he told. He’s not mad.

“But you don’t know why, so I guess I’d like to explain that. Um, well, I guess I should start with the reason I had you all help me move her into my flat…” Liam trails off, this is harder than he thought it would be. He catches Zayn’s eye and brief nod. “The thing is, or was, rather, Sophia was pregnant.”

The shock on their faces says it all really. Zayn hadn’t told, not that Liam thought he would. But they hadn’t even guessed. Well, it’s not like he had either.

“What do you mean ‘was pregnant?’” Louis asks, gathering himself first.

“That’s exactly what it means,” Liam says back, “she ‘was’ pregnant because she’s not anymore.”

“So she lost the baby and you guys broke up?” Harry asks now, his face scrunched up in confusion.

“It’s a bit more complicated than that,” Liam says, struggling to figure out how to say it.

“Just tell it from the beginning, Liam,” Zayn gets up, chucks his cheek as he walks into the kitchen. He comes back a second later with five beers in his hands, and Liam is still sitting there trying to figure out how to tell his best friends that his girlfriend, the woman he thought was the love of his life, didn’t want a child with him. Or even to tell him the truth about basic things like her feelings.

He drinks a sip of his beer. And the story falls out of his mouth. He tells them how Zayn found him and confronted Sophia, how she had no defense and was going to let him think she had just lost the baby. Like she used to misplace her keys and mobile. Like their baby was just something you could forget where you placed it.

“So I’ve been um, going through something,” he says.

Niall snorts, “Yeah, I guess so, mate.”

“And, um, this is the part I really wanted you here for. I, um, I wrote a song about it.” He smiles at Zayn, “And I want you lot to be the first to hear it.”

He reaches down and picks his guitar up, taking his lucky pic out of his wallet where he keeps it, scared it will get lost. The lads are generous in their encouragement and Liam basks in their love. It’s almost tangible in the air right now. He holds on to that feeling when he starts strumming the first few chords. And then the song just flows out of him.

When the last chord leaves his fingers, and the last note finishes echoing around Louis’ living room, Liam looks around at all their faces. The song takes so much out of him when he plays it that he has no sense of his audience until it’s over. To his surprise, there are tears in most of their eyes. The boys like never cry. Most of them cried during X-factor when they were originally let go before forming the band and again when they didn’t win – but it’s a rare day that they cry. Especially in front of each other. In fact, he’s done the most public crying in the last few weeks. Poor Zayn.

Niall has his hand on Harry’s knee, gripping it so tightly that his knuckles are white. He finds his voice first. “That was brilliant, Li. Who’d you write it with?”

Liam shrugs, “No one. I wrote it on my own.” He fumbles with his lucky guitar pic, accidentally dropping it next to his trainers. “Felt like something that had to be just me, you know?”

The seriousness of the moment continues to dominate the room. For five uber famous singers, they are rarely serious and this moment feels as brittle as glass. Harry, trying to politely dislodge Niall’s fingers digging into his skin, meets Liam’s eyes unabashedly with tears streaming down his face. “You have to play it again.” Liam envies how easily Harry can show his heart to other people. He’s so genuine in everything he does and he just _feels_ everything so deeply. Liam can’t judge the effectiveness of his song based on Harry’s reactions. He once saw him cry when they passed a dead squirrel on the side of the road in Utah, after all. “I just need to hear it again.”

The other boys are still silent and it’s starting to freak Liam out. Was it that bad? He’s glad he did this in the privacy of Louis’ house and not like on stage or something for the first time. At least the lads will be honest with him. Perhaps Harry wants to hear it again so he can give him proper feed-back. Liam just wants to know what they’re thinking.

Zayn clears his throat, swallowing a lump by the sounds of it. Liam quirks a small smile. Zayn, like Harry, has a huge heart and was closer to the subject than anyone but Liam. Still, the realization that he wasn’t unaffected cheers Liam considerably. “Yeah, let’s give it another go. I have to listen to it again.”

Liam searches absentmindedly for the lost pic on the floor, unable to tear his eyes away from the group, afraid he’ll miss something, a look, a facial expression, anything that will give away their true thoughts. “Okay.”

Niall jumps up and is halfway across the room to Louis’ decorative guitar on the wall before his mouth catches up to his actions. “Do you mind if I play a little rhythm guitar with you on the chorus?”

Liam’s thrown for a second. Why would he even want to? Niall may have said he liked the song, but to want to encourage Liam? To want to join in? Liam tries to cover up his surprise. “Sure,” he shrugs again. He’s suddenly self-conscious of how often he’s been shrugging and tries to pin his shoulders down.

The recovered pic feels lighter in his hand this time as he strums the first few chords. The nerves are worse this time around. He’s played for millions of people. He’s performed on live TV. He’s performed at the Olympics! He shouldn’t be nervous playing in front of his best mates. Once he hits the first verse, though, the same angelic out-of-body experience overcomes him and he just plays, imaging a small hand that he’s never going to hold. The music transforms him in the way that all great music does to him. He doesn’t look up until the last chord fades in the room.

An uncharacteristically quiet Louis breaks the tension-filled silence. “I’m honestly stunned.” His hands run through his hair, pushing his fringe up into devil spikes. “Proper speechless.” Well that is saying something, Liam acknowledges to himself. Even Louis doesn’t call himself speechless lightly. It’s Louis’ next statement that truly blows Liam’s mind. “We _have_ to put this on the album.”

He gapes. There’s no other way to put it, mouth open, eyes wide, catching flies, the whole she-bang.

Niall puts words to Liam’s thoughts. “They’re never going to let us put a song like that on the album.” He sounds reluctant, like he agrees with Louis and is saddened by what he knows is true. They _wouldn’t_ ever let them put this song on their album. Management wouldn’t let them take up space on the album with songs about abortion. One Direction is not supposed to be political.

“They’ll think it doesn’t fit our image or something,” Harry agrees, and Harry should know. He’s been hit the hardest with meeting after meeting about his image. He just doesn’t have it in him to lie convincingly and that seems to be all management wants him to do. Be straight, be more charming, be more accessible to girls. “And it’s about babies. I mean, it’s pretty clear what it’s about, innit?” He looks around for validation.

Niall nods, looking torn. He plucks at the guitar nervously. Liam is surprised it was in tune, sitting there on Louis’ wall for however long it’s been there. He’s pretty sure it was there over the New Year. Maybe Niall tuned it then, who knows. “But it’s too important not to try.”

“If we bring this to management,” Louis’ says, “they won’t even listen past the pitch.”

Zayn speaks up, then, his eyes gleaming like they do when he has an idea and it’s not going to get back to him. Someone else is going to get the blame. Zayn’s the master at that. “Then we don’t give them a choice, lads.” He sounds strong, determined. Liam wants to believe in him. “We bring the song to the fans a different way.”

He’s nervously flicking his eyes from lad to lad, honestly floored by the support he sees between the four of them. These are the lads who didn’t hesitate to say yes when asked to join a band with four boys they barely know. These are the lads who play pranks on Simon Cowell. “Are you guys sure?”

Louis waves a hand in his mouth, not bothering to reassure him, his full attention on Zayn. “Shut up, Liam, Zayn’s on to something.”

Zayn soaks up the attention. “We can’t play it straight to management,” he says, echoing earlier sentiments, “So we make sure everybody knows it a different way.”

“We leak our own song?” Liam asks.

Harry is the first to object, “If management finds out we did that, we’re in right deep shite. We’d be breaking our contract.” Liam remembers the talk at dinner a few weeks ago, how Harry and Louis have been affected the most be management’s manipulation. He understands Harry’s reluctance. “It can’t come back to us. At all.”

Nodding his head to give Harry courage, Zayn says, “We release the song in the most natural way we can. Louis, you with me?”

Louis giggles maniacally. Liam doesn’t like the sound of that. That’s the sound of having a water balloon filled with milk thrown at your crotch seconds before you go onstage. That’s the sound of the Great Nipple War of October 2012. That’s the sound of consequences. “So with you.” Yup, Liam decides, they are officially in over their heads and they haven’t even heard the plan yet. Louis keeps talking while Liam tries to process. “Niall, do you still have that secret blog that you think I don’t know about and the also not-so-secret-from-me twitter account?”

Niall places the guitar carefully back on the wall. Liam didn’t even see him get up. “Yeah, but—“

“We can’t release it through twitter or youtube.” Liam says, knowing Zayn and Louis no doubt thought of that, but needing to know he said it anyway, “It’ll still come back to us.”

“No, you’re right, Liam.” Louis grins evilly. Liam half expects him to start rubbing his hands together. “And that’s why _we_ don’t.”

Zayn looks to Liam and meets his eyes. Whereas Louis’ ideas never turn out the way they’re supposed to and Liam usually ends up in heap big trouble, Zayn has a way of balancing Louis’ ideas for optimum fun-having and fewer bad consequences. “We let the fans do it for us, yeah?”

He hears a gasp coming from Niall, followed by, “We just have to find a way to get it to them!”

So there’s Niall convinced. Liam almost wants to roll his eyes. Louis smiles encouragingly now, and it takes Liam off the edge. He can’t deal with Louis’ trouble smile. “Now he’s catching on. And what better way to sing a song than at a concert, hmm Niall?”

Wait, what? That is so not where Liam thought they were going with that. He gulps, “We’re going to perform it at a concert?” The butterflies come rushing back to his stomach. This is only hypothetical at this point, and he’s already nervous.

Louis and Zayn convene with their eyes, agreeing on something before Zayn leans forward, his elbows landing on his knees. “ _You’re_ going to perform it.” He points at Liam, like there’s confusion about who he’s talking to. “We’re going to make sure you have the opportunity.”

Liam tries to take that as a promise and not as a threat.

.

..

…

..

.

Purposefully, Liam makes sure not to learn anything about the plan or how the plan is going. He sees Harry walk off after sound check towards the technical crew and averts his eyes.

He knows Niall has his part down, he walked in on Louis, Niall, and Zayn coming up with questions to ask from the same twitter so it wouldn’t look like this one twitter follower only asked one question. Liam backed right out of the doorway to Louis protesting that they had to have a few “OMG I LOVE 1D SOOO EFFIN’ MUCH” tweets for realism.

It’s not that he doesn’t appreciate what the lads are doing for him. He’s just always been bad at practical jokes. There’s a reason Louis plays them _on_ him and not _with_ him.

He’s also nervous. Like, unbelievably nervous. And it’s not all playing a new song for their fans – he knows that they’re likely to love anything the band puts out at this point. Maybe not a few years down the road when they’re on their way out. Rather, he’s nervous to be going against their management like this.

The average fan doesn’t realize how much of them is managed, put through meetings, how their twitters don’t belong solely to themselves. Management has legitimate meetings about who Harry should date next. Management tells them who they can sit next to at events, and not like other celebrities, like inside the band. Usually it’s Harry and Louis that can’t sit next to each other – which is pretty ridiculous because that just means they have to lean over three people to talk to each other. It’s annoying.

The reason they have to put up with that? They signed a contract with Modest! Management when Simon signed them for a record deal.

People don’t realize that breaking a contract is illegal. Like, they can take the lads to court and sue them and probably win, illegal. Which would involve lots of legal drama and money and that takes time away from them to be touring or recording or doing things that they like to do.

So, Liam is pretty much bricking it for the entire day leading up to the concert. Zayn finds him lying face down in his bunk and pulls him out and onto the big bed in the back with the playstation. Liam doesn’t see Zayn text anybody, but not even five minutes later the rest of the lads walk in one at a time and join the group cuddle.

Liam feels better.

They stay like that until thirty minutes before show time. They have a few more kinks in the plan to work out. It’s Niall that realizes twitter questions happen where they won’t have easy access to a guitar and decides that he just won’t give his up from earlier, he’ll take it with him onto the middle stage area after they fly over the crowd.

By the time they’re ready to take the stage, Liam feels normal levels of nervousness. He shakes his body loose, jumping up and down to get himself psyched. Zayn sneaks back inside from his last cigarette, and Harry ties his headscarf securely. Liam smiles affectionately. He’ll probably lose it by the end of their third song. Liam looks around, he doesn’t see Louis or Niall and they’re about to go on.

Zayn walks over to him to whisper in his ear, “They’re fine. Just last minute things.”

He rubs Liam’s back, comfortingly. Then adds, “You gonna be okay up there?”

“Yeah,” he says, trying to sound like it’s no big deal to him and he’s perfectly cool and collected. “Totally fine.”

“Liam?” Zayn raises his eyebrows, asking for the truth. “Are you sure? Or do you want me to sing back-up vocals for you?”

Liam pretty much always wants Zayn to sing. He’s just that talented. Liam thinks about it – no one else went through the whole ordeal with him like Zayn did. And this song and performing it is supposed to help him deal with it and put it behind him.

He thinks wildly right then, that maybe the normal thing to do would have been to go to therapy or something and he didn’t even think of that. His mind jumped straight to writing a song and performing it for the whole world. What is wrong with him?

“Sing with me,” he says. “I could use some harmony on the chorus, I think.”

Zayn smiles beautifully. His eyes crinkle and his mouth seems so large. He grabs Liam’s hand and squeezes it before turning around and making sure he has his microphone.

The nervous knot in his stomach disappears. Louis and Niall join them just before Paul announces they have two minutes. Liam gathers them into a huddle and they do their thing. Before they can scatter to take the stage, he grabs them all and pulls them back into the huddle.

“I just wanted to say thank you, lads. You know I love each of you bastards.”

“Oh, Liam,” Louis says, bringing them all into one big group hug. “You big softie. C’mon, let’s get out there.”

They step onto the stage. Harry swats at his bum before they’re even out of the gate.

“Hello Toronto!”

Liam can feel the energy flowing around him and he just knows this concert is going much better than the last few in London.

They fly through the first half of the show, and Liam almost forgets what’s coming. He has a moment of panic that something went wrong and the question won’t pop up. He dances closer to Harry, whispering in his ear, “Are you sure they’re going to show the question?”

Harry frowns at him, pulls his face closer and whispers, “Of course they are. I promised Raoul I would make an appearance for his Cerebral Palsy charity. His niece has it and he’s trying to help them out anyway he can.”

Biting back the urge to roll his eyes, because you really can’t roll your eyes at Cerebral Palsy, but you can roll your eyes at Harry and Liam desperately wants to. Only Harry would try to talk someone into something and wind up promising to help raise money for a charity.

“Hey,” Harry whispers in his ear again, “I did that for you, so you’re coming with me.”

He smiled brilliantly and without missing a beat, jumps straight into his solo in “You and I.”

Now Liam definitely has to roll his eyes.

Before Liam knows it, they’re in the air above the audience and on their way to answering twitter questions. True to his word, Niall is holding his guitar around his back, looking every inch the tortured musician.

Liam holds his breath when the first question pops up on the screen. They go through a few, having fun with it. Liam generally likes this portion of the concert just as much as the singing part. Here, they get to just have fun with their fans. It’s as close to hanging out with fans as they can get without endangering themselves.

He doesn’t see when the question does finally pop up, he’s looking out at the signs the fans made, trying to read them. He likes to do that too. Sometimes they can be so clever, it astounds him.

He hears the roar of the audience and his stomach drops. He knows this is the question. Sure enough, he turns around slowly and sees it up there, glaring at him.

Louis takes the initiative and reads the questions, thanking the made up person in a made up section for the suggestion that they “play something you’re working on.”

“Well, now,” Harry says to the crowd, milking it like only he knows how. “There is something we could share. If it’s okay with Liam, that is. What do you think, should we ask him?”

The crowd goes wild, chants of his name start up. He quite likes the sound of that. He tries to act bashful, like this isn’t exactly what they wanted to happen. Zayn and Louis sandwich him, trying to tickle him into saying yes. Which he does.

He brings his microphone to his face, “Alright, alright fine. I’ve got something that might fit the criteria.” The crowd cheers again.

“I’m gonna need a guitar though,” he pretends to look around, like he doesn’t know Niall will be bringing his guitar over in just a second.

Niall places the guitar in his hands and then takes his microphone off and puts it on Liam so that he can play and sing at the same time. Liam strums a few times, getting used to the feeling and trying to get his bearings. “I actually, might need one more thing.”

He sits on the edge of the stage. “Zayn? Will you help me out, mate?”’

He looks behind him, to see Zayn in double vision – the jumbotron tracking his journey to Liam’s side. Zayn sits down next to him, pulls him into a quick one-armed hug and kisses him quickly on the cheek. The crowd eats that up.

“So this is a song I wrote over our break in London,” Liam tells the crowd. He remembers what Louis and Harry decided they should tell the audience so that Liam’s privacy is still protected. “I wrote it for a friend of mine who went through a pretty hard time. Please let me know if you like it, I’m still learning how to write songs and any constructive criticism is welcomed.”

“Constructive.” Zayn says, his voice a warning. “Don’t be mean for no reason. Alright, Liam, kick it.”

Liam begins to play. The screams drown out the opening bars, but very quickly the audience settles down and just listens. Zayn sings a few rifts just to complement the intro. It feels right to Liam, that he and Zayn should be singing this song together.

He sings the first verse. It’s quiet in the theater. When he begins the chorus, he hears the harmony Zayn picked to go with his melody and he almost cries.

_Push me on the swing, Daddy_

_Higher than the sky_

_I want to touch the angels_

_Singing up on high_

_So push me on the swing, Daddy_

_Aren’t you very proud?_

_I want to meet an angel_

_That lives on a cloud_

They finish the song and Liam comes back to himself. The first few rows of girls all have tears streaming down their faces. He can’t see any farther than that.

Zayn pulls him into another side hug and Liam welcomes it, welcomes the connection there. The other lads come up behind them and tackle them until there are five grown men rolling around on the stage and somebody’s whining about being bruised.

The crowd is still cheering when they finally untangle their limbs. “Wasn’t that amazing?” Harry asks their audience. More cheers. Deafening cheers. Liam loves it.

“We can’t hear you!” Louis yells into his microphone. “Did you like it or not?!”

Liam thinks he might need to get his hearing checked after this. He almost might want to check with a dentist and see if this blinding smile is good for his teeth because he can’t stop.

Liam can’t stop hugging the lads. He’s so happy. He got to play his song, he got to get it out there, and their fans liked it. Loved it. His boys made it all possible. He slaps a big kiss on Niall’s cheek.

.

..

…

..

.

After the concert, they go out as a group. They rarely do that these days because of the difficulty in maneuvering all five of them. Also, it’s not every day that all five of them want to go out. The road gets kind of monotonous and so does the club scene. Plus, there’s the underage thing. Harry doesn’t like to abuse his fame to get into clubs even though he’s underage.

This particular day, however, they _have_ to celebrate getting one over on management and the success of Liam’s song. Louis talks to Paul as their unofficial leader, and a limo picks all five of them up from the hotel and takes them to whatever club Louis googled and thought sounded cool. Liam is sure it will be. Louis knows his clubs. Except football clubs, shit taste there.

They settle into the VIP section for an hour, drinking steadily until they are all sloppy drunk and daring each other to drunk dial people. Zayn calls Perrie because Louis dares him and is visibly relieved when she doesn’t answer.

In a combination of jet lag, exhaustion, and inebriation, they decide to dance. There’s a reason they don’t have choreographed concerts – they are all shit dancers. But they have a blast dancing anyway. Liam butchers the foxtrot with Niall to Lourde’s remix. Harry and Zayn flail at each other for a while and Louis clears just enough space to do the worm around the group. He stops when he realizes no one is paying attention. Liam helpfully points out the new stains on his nice white shirt. Louis curses and shrugs, “It’s Harry’s anyway.”

They scramble back into the limo two hours later, too exhausted to continue much longer. Liam thinks he may have tweeted about how early they left the club – something about it being past Harry’s bed time. Liam grins at his own genius. He scrolls back to his homepage while they make their way back to the hotel, Harry already sleeping against Louis’ side.

His breath catches in his throat. His eyes read over the tweet again. No, he didn’t send that. “Missing that special someone love u babe. Just did an amazing show and wish u were here.” He checks for a response, none yet.

He feels his grip on the phone tighten, wishing for a second that he had Hulk strength and he could just crush it. Not that it would help. Then he’d just need a new phone. So this is management’s play? They’re trying to pretend he’s still with Sophia?

Liam throws up in his mouth a little bit. It could be the alcohol. Or it could be the thought of having to pretend to still be with her. It’s a toss-up.

Until they tell him in a meeting he’s supposed to pretend to be with her, Liam decides he’s going to do what he was already doing. Go about his day like he’s a single bloke. Because he is, damn it.

The limo pulls up at their hotel, round the back. It’s too late for many of their fans to be there, but there are still a few nevertheless. He signs a few posters perfunctorily. At this point, he’s just exhausted.

He follows Zayn upstairs to his room. “What’s wrong?” Zayn asks.

How can he always tell there’s something wrong? “Just management.” He pulls up the tweet again and shows Zayn.

“What are you going to do?”

Liam steps into Zayn’s room, pulling his shirt off. “Just live my life, I suppose.” Zayn follows suit and then gets them bottled water out of the minibar. They see who can chug it the fastest. Liam wins. They settle into bed looking at each other.

He’s seconds from being asleep when he feels lips on his forehead and a foot snuggle up between his. Zayn’s already snoring.

.

..

…

..

.

The bus isn’t the best place to write music, Liam finds out the next morning in Toronto. It’s kind of smelly, thanks Niall, and a bit cramped. But they have coffee, a guitar, an electric keyboard, and a drum pad that Niall rocks. Liam lives for jam sessions like these. Something about completing a song by himself has given him the confidence to continue writing – to give his opinions on things with conviction behind his voice. He’s more sure of his thoughts and eager to share them.

Louis has a nice talent for lyrics, to no one’s surprise.

The one thing they don’t have, they discover twenty minutes into their writing session, is something to write their ideas down on. Liam runs to his bunk, sure he put a pad of paper there. He comes up empty handed. Louis and Niall join the search, looking through their own bunks for something when Niall strikes gold on Harry’s bunk.

“Here’s something, lads,” Niall says, holding out the brown journal. “Found it under Harry’s pillow. Reckon we can use this?”

“That’s Harry’s lyric journal,” Louis says.

“Sounds like it’s perfect then,” Liam grabs it out of Niall’s hand and starts flipping through, looking for an empty page when he stops. He flips back a few pages. He scours the page again, trying to make sense of what he’s seeing.

“What’s taking so long?” Niall asks, plucking the journal out of Liam’s hand to look at for himself.

“Is that what I think it is?” Liam asks Niall, needing confirmation.

Niall’s face morphs into confusion. Louis hates being left out. They all know this. “What? What’s going on?”

He leans over Niall’s shoulder, looking at the page. “What the hell? Is that ‘Little Things?’”

“I think so,” Liam says, “I thought you said it was Harry’s.”

Louis takes the journal from Niall and flips to the beginning, showing them where Harry wrote his name and phone number. “It is.”

“So, does this mean…?” Niall looks to Liam and Louis to answer his question.

Liam shrugs. “Maybe? But, I thought Ed wrote ‘Little Things?’”

Niall gasps, like he just had a revelation. “Maybe he didn’t want us to know he wrote it?”

“Why wouldn’t he want us to know? It’s a great song, we’re proud to sing it, he should be proud to have written it.” Louis starts pacing up and down the small aisle between the bunks.

Liam thinks he gets it though. “He probably didn’t want us to know because of who it’s about.”

He sees Niall nod. Liam can just image poor Harry, writing this beautiful song for Louis and not wanting to bring that awkward elephant up – let alone having to sing it with the guy he’s in love with at every concert they do together, knowing that Louis knows it’s about him. Liam doesn’t blame Harry one bit and makes a mental note to give him a big hug next time he sees him.

“Why? Who’s it about?” Louis asks. Niall and Liam meet eyes. Is he serious? Liam is honestly surprised he didn’t put it together before this, based off the lyrics alone.

“Are you stupid?” He asks Louis. “This is very clearly about you, mate. Like the talking in your sleep thing?”

Louis still looks confused.

Niall sits down on Harry’s bunk, running his hands through his hair. “And drinking tea before bed? That’s you. If tea were a pint, then I’d guess me.”

The thought occurs to Liam that Louis genuinely does not know that Harry feels this way about him. Like, how could he not see that Harry is crazy about him. Even to this day, almost five years since they met?

Niall continues when Louis doesn’t say anything, too shocked to speak. “You mean you really had no idea? About you and Harry? Mate, you do everything together. No one even tries to come between you, well, except management.”

“We thought you were respecting the Modest! contract about no couples and like putting the band first or whatever,” Liam says.

Finally Louis finds his voice. “But I’m not gay! I have a girlfriend.”

Niall shrugs, the curtain to Harry’s bed falling on him a little bit. “We thought it was just one of those things we don’t talk about. Like the Zayn thing.”

This sparks an understanding in Louis’ desperate eyes.

“What Zayn thing?” Liam asks, now the confused party. “Like the racist bullshit he has to go through?”

Niall doesn’t look at him, still locking eyes with Louis. “Yeah,” he says, “That.”

“You guys are missing the point.” Louis says. “I’m not into guys.”

Niall scratches his head, “I mean, have you ever wanted to kiss a lad? You kiss us all the time.”

Louis snorts, shaking his head, “On the cheek. We all kiss each other on the cheek, yeah?”

Liam has to admit, that’s true. He kisses the lads all the time, and they kiss him. Niall has a response for that too, “Sure, but 4/5ths of us aren’t completely straight.”

Liam blinks. “What?”

No one acknowledges his question. “Have you ever properly snogged a lad, Louis?” Niall asks, “Just to say you’ve tried it?”

Louis punches Niall’s shoulder, “No, of course not.”

Niall shakes it off, “Then maybe start there.”

“Wait, back to the 4/5ths thing…” Liam says. They ignore him again.

Louis throws his hands up, a gesture of defeat, “Who am I supposed to snog, then?”

He looks around like he’s expecting some random bloke to just show up on their bus for him to kiss to make Niall shut up.

Niall shrugs again, it’s starting to infuriate Liam and he’s not even the one on trial here. “I’ll kiss yeh.”

“What is going on? Am I dreaming?” Liam is ignored for the third time. He pinches his own arm and it _hurts_.

Louis’ face morphs into disgust, “I don’t want to kiss you, Niall.”

“Why not?” Niall says, defensively, “I’m plenty cute enough to snog.”

Louis shakes his head, “It’d be like kissing my brother.”

Liam cannot believe they are seriously still having this conversation. What is wrong with his life?

Niall smiles like he just got one over on them, and maybe he has, “So it’d be because I’m like a brother to you and not because I’ve got a cock?”

“Yes?”

“Go snog Harry and find out for yourself.”

“Harry won’t want—“

Liam has to cut him off there. Because this is something he knows a little something about. “Why don’t you let Harry tell you what he wants instead of assuming? Learn from my mistakes, Lou.”

“What, I’m supposed to just go up to him and snog him? Just like that?” Louis is starting to sound a bit panicked. It’s kind of cute.

“Not in public,” Niall says helpfully.

“And make sure you back off if he asks,” Liam adds.

Niall sees Louis’ panic too and says, “Not that he will.”

“Not that he will.” Liam says, echoing Niall’s reassurance. “Then maybe ask him about the journal.” Because he really does want to know about it.

Louis shakes his head, his mullet flying around his head, “I’m not going to snog him. You two are crazy. I am going to ask him about the journal, though. Why would he hide that he wrote the song from us?”

Clearly Louis left North America and headed for Egypt without telling anyone. Liam and Niall make eye contact. They both realize they lost Louis.

Liam tries to be gentle with Louis, he tries to understand that Louis just had a major shock and is dealing the way that works best for him. “Go talk to Harry about it. Then let us know.”

.

..

…

..

.

They purposefully do not check social media the day after that first show in Toronto. The band had all tweeted the day of and the day prior to that first concert in Toronto so that management wouldn’t be on them to tweet more.

The point is, the next night’s concert, still in Toronto, and the whole band in various stages of hung-over, they are overwhelmed by the response from “Liam’s Lullaby.”

They begin the concert the same way, they run through a few songs, pump the energy up. Liam does the splits a couple times. He’s still got it, he thinks.

He looks out at the signs, like he likes to do. One in every eight or so read something along the lines of, “Play the Lullaby! XOXO.” Liam asks Louis during Zayn’s solo what that means. Louis conveys his ignorance with just a quirk of his face.

When it comes time for twitter questions again, Liam learns what the fans are talking about. Harry takes over reading the tweets out loud, since Niall just read the last one. He shuffles over to center stage, looking behind him to read the words. “Please. Please. Please can we hear “Liam’s Lullaby” again? It’s so beautiful! Xx ;)”

Then it’s like a light bulb goes off over their collective heads. They hadn’t named the song. Liam hadn’t named the song, so the fans did for him. He finds it doesn’t bother him. It feels right. He wanted to share the song with the lads and with the fans. The lads have added their own particular contributions to the song, and the fans named it. It feels right to Liam. He can accept this.

The boys all huddle around him while he’s thinking about the name of the song. “Are you going to do it, Liam?” Niall asks and it sounds like it’s not the first time he’s said it.

Why wouldn’t he? “Why wouldn’t I? They want to hear it, I want to play it. Let’s do this.”

“We’re just worried—“ Harry begins, only to be cut off by Louis.

“Since you weren’t expecting—“

“It’s fine,” he says, suddenly pleased. The fans like the song. He’s preening on the inside. Okay, he’s preening a bit on the outside too. “I need a guitar!”

“I brought mine,” Niall says, picking it up from the other side of the middle partition. “Just in case, you know?”

Liam smiles, touches the small of Zayn’s back who is still huddled a bit around him. “You lads cool to sing back up with me?”

Harry’s face lights up. “All of us?” He mimes across the group as well, since he’s the farthest away from Liam.

“Of course, Curly. Get your game face on.”

“This _is_ my game face,” he says back, smiling crookedly. Yeah, Liam supposes that is his game face. It’s very effective.

Liam picks up the guitar, strums it a few times, getting into the correct headspace for this song. It’s close to the emotion for “Little Things,” but different enough that he has to step away from the lads for a second. He watches Zayn teach the harmonies to Harry, Louis, and Niall. Liam has a suspicion that Zayn will take the harder part, a separate melody that they haven’t practiced at all. Liam trusts him completely.

He starts to sing, and it all comes together. They fall into each other’s sounds so naturally, like they fall into each other’s spaces, like they fell into being a band. Their rugged edges fit together seamlessly, and Liam once again sits in awe at the brilliance of Simon Cowell to force them into a band. How could he know? How could any human being see this potential? Liam doesn’t understand, doubts he ever will, but feels overcome with gratefulness in this moment. His lads at his back, his fans singing along to the song he wrote and performed for them less than a day ago, he is beyond blessed.

After the concert, they don’t go out.

They have a day off before they have to be in East Rutherford for the next performance. Not enough time to go anywhere but the next city.

They hang out with the musicians. They play a harmless prank or two on their roadies. Zayn and Liam read comic books in Liam’s bunk, arguing between pages about their favorites.

They all stick close together, waiting for an opportunity to talk. Maybe they’re paranoid, but waiting until they are alone and have privacy to speak, just the five of them, without management lackeys able to overhear and report back – it’s worth it. Especially since the topic they all desperately want to cover is one that management cannot know about, at any cost.

Their opportunity comes the next day, the day of the concert. There’s a radio interview in the morning and a photo shoot during the day. They get to go back to the hotel for a quick nap, though, to rest up for the concert.

Zayn nudges Harry, who pinches Louis, who blushes, but kicks Niall on the shin twice, “Ow!” before he picks up the message, and elbows Liam. They all silently agree on Zayn and Liam’s room.

Twenty minutes later, Louis arrives at their door, knocking his stupid secret knock that Liam has tried to tell him time and time again he doesn’t need to do – but Louis knocks two quick raps and three long ones anyway, and Liam instantly knows that their group is complete because Louis’ here.

“That’s Louis,” Niall says, helping himself to Liam’s minibar.

“Well, let him in,” Liam says from the bed, wishing he could actually take the nap they’re supposed to be having. Harry curls up around him, obviously just as sleepy.

Zayn walks out of the bathroom, the toilet flushing behind him, and opens the door for Louis.

“Was no one going to let me in?” He asks the room at large.

Niall pulls the cap off a bottle of water. “Nah, mate. Thought we’d just leave you out there, hope you’d get the hint.”

“If you were on time,” Harry mumbles from behind Liam, “you wouldn’t have had to wait out there for fifteen seconds.”

“Whatever,” Louis says, jumping onto the bed and getting straight down to business. “So, Niall, what can you tell us from the internet?”

“The internet agrees that the song is lovely and everybody really wants to hear it.”

“How many views on Youtube?” Zayn asks.

“Depends,” Niall says, “there are about three high quality videos, two from the second night and one from the first, vying for the highest number of hits. This doesn’t include the videos that take the audio and like put it over pictures of babies walking with like angels wings and halos and shit.”

“So, it’s good?” Liam asks.

“Yeah, like, how many is a lot, Nialler?” Louis sits criss-cross over the covers, on the opposite side of the bed from Harry, using Liam as a buffer. Liam feels the uncomfortableness rolling off of him and the sadness coming from Harry, who’s confused at Louis’ behavior. “Is it ‘viral’ yet?”

“What does that even mean?” Zayn says, throwing his hands up in the air. “I mean, how many views does it have to be to be ‘viral’ and who even came up with that fucking term? It’s not like a disease, why it is ‘viral?’”

“I dunno, mate,” Liam pats his leg.

Louis’ losing patience, “Niall!”

Niall opens his super-secret laptop that he’s not supposed to have and shows the youtube site to them. “So this one has 540,890 views. This one has a few thousand less than that one, and all the comments are positive.”

Liam raises an eyebrow. He knows how social media works – he’s a millennial. “All the comments are positive?”

“Well, the majority of the comments are positive. Lots of crying girls, lots of homophobic slurs, the usual.”

“But overall a success,” Louis says, declaring it so.

“We should try writing our own songs more often if this is the reaction we get,” Harry says from under the covers.

Liam doesn’t look at Louis, but he _does_ look at Niall. This isn’t the right time for a confrontation on that front. That needs to come from Louis. Liam tells Niall with his eyes that he’s just as frustrated with their curly-haired friend.

“Yeah, we should,” Louis agrees, his tone just a little off.

“I’ve been working on something,” Zayn says, trying to be cool even though every person in this room knows him well enough to _know_ he’s not cool, just a big nerd with a stupidly awesome singing voice. And like the face of an actual angel. It’s widely acknowledged between the band members.

“Louis, Niall, and I were working on something too, a few days ago,” Liam says.

Niall sits on the bed, worming his way in between Zayn and Louis so that he can put his head on Liam’s chest. “I quite like writing, you know? Like, it’s scary, and it makes me feel vulnerable and stuff, but it’s so rewarding.”

“Yeah,” Liam says, thinking of all the faces of the fans singing along with the words he wrote, begging for more, “quite the rush when people think it’s good and not shit, right?”

“Why don’t we,” Zayn begins, his voice tentative from the far edge of the bed.

“Why don’t we what, Zaynie?” Louis asks.

Zayn pushes his head up so he can see everybody properly. “Why don’t we write more songs? Like, fill an entire album with our own songs. Even if management won’t put them on the album.”

The sit in silence for a second, none of them quite sure what to say. And then they all speak at once.

“I think,” Liam says, after they all stop cutting each other off, “that that is an excellent idea. I’m up for the challenge. What about you lads?”

“I’m in,” says Niall, his head now down on Liam’s stomach.

“I’m in,” Harry says.

Louis smirks. “I’m in, too. But I think we have to up the stakes.”

Of course Louis wants to up the stakes. “I think Zayn here has to create the album cover and get it approved through management.”

Zayn’s voice comes like honey from his spot on the bed, still lording over everyone else. “Is that all?”

“Do we have a deal?” Louis looks to each of them, searching their faces.

Liam speaks up for the group. “We have a deal, Tommo. Let’s write some songs.”

And they do.

The next day, Liam is pulled into a meeting with management. They want to release “Liam’s Lullaby” as a single on their next album. He can’t do anything but nod along. They’re set to start recording the next day.

.

..

…

..

.

It takes a lot of underhanded tactics to let Liam record his song the way he God damn wants to. Management wants Harry to take two of the verses and give one to Zayn as well. They do what they do best in the business world: they negotiate. Mostly, though, Louis negotiates, on Liam’s behalf.

Louis would make an excellent lawyer, if he could be bothered to learn law shit to back up his arguments, Liam thinks and might mention it out of the side of his mouth to Niall who nods solemnly.

Harry refuses to solo on Liam’s song. All the lads do, they have Liam’s back. It takes Louis an hour of aggressive negotiations to break out their trump card. Liam wrote the song, the fans know that. Liam sang the entire song in public and that’s how their audience knows the song. Fucking it up in studio would anger the fans more than it would please them.

Louis argues with David, their current balding management go-between, that they’ve already compromised by agreeing to sing back up on the song.

“Look, mate,” he says, clearly not regarding David as his mate, “we shouldn’t even be on this song at all. This is a song written by just one of us, which is rare, as we all know. But don’t you think the fans would like that? To see us growing and maturing as artists? Wouldn’t their parents want to see us maturing and setting good examples for the kids, hmm? You’re going to have a bunch of angry tweens on your hands if you mess up how this song goes out. So, this is what’s going to happen. Liam is going to sing lead, and we’ll work out harmony to go behind him. Later, when it’s our turn to records songs _we’ve_ written, he’ll have our back too.”

Louis doesn’t wait for David to respond, just turns to Liam and points at him. “Mic up, bitch.”

They record the song exactly as Louis said they were going to. Harry only falls asleep once in between goes. Liam considers it a successful day of recording.

.

..

…

..

.

One can never predict what the media will harp on next. Liam and the lads know this well. There have been cheating rumors with Zayn for years, not to mention who they’re all dating, sometimes people they’ve never even met. That sort of thing.

They couldn’t predict that the media would have a slow day and decide to pick on Harry.

“What’s wrong, Harry?” Liam asks, seeing Harry pouting in the corner of the backroom at the recording studio they’ve taken over for the last two days. That’s unusual for him when they’re working. Normally, he’s off making friends with everyone, learning their grandmother’s names and what they like in their tea.

“I’m fine,” he says, completely believably. Liam looks around and sees he and Harry are now the only ones in the room, the rest of the lads called to finish up recording harmony on the chorus of Liam’s Lullaby.

Liam sits down next to him on the floor. It feels like concrete with a small layer of carpet over it. Not comfortable at all. Liam leans into Harry, “Oh, yeah, I believe that. Look at that frowny face.” He pinches his cheek, like Harry’s dimples were hiding from him, “Even your curls are limp.”

“It’s nothing,” Harry tries again, just as sad as before.

“Tell me what’s wrong, mate.”

Harry sighs and looks up to meet Liam’s eyes, “Someone made a twitter for my zit.”

Liam is not expecting that answer. He expected something along the lines of, ‘my burning love for Louis knows no bounds and I am heartbroken, help me.’

“They what? Who did?”

“I dunno, some arseholes made this huge mountain on my face a twitter account and keep tweeting mean things.”

Now that Harry mentioned the zit, Liam can see it on his face. Right on his left cheek, almost even with his lips. It’s red and inflamed and looks a bit painful. Harry’s skin has never been the most flawless in the group (Zayn), but he’s never had a zit this big either. And since they weren’t making a public appearance today, just recording, Lou hadn’t been by to do their make-up. Liam doubts even Lou Teasedale on her best day could cover that thing up, though.

“So you’re what, just sitting here and stewing in agony?”

Harry’s silence speaks for itself.

“How did you even see the tweets?” Liam asks quietly, pulling Harry to him and petting his hair. He can see when his mate needs a cuddle.

Harry brings his iPhone up even with Liam’s face and it’s pulled up on twitter, “It keeps mentioning me.”

“Harry,” Liam says, trying to figure out how to say this gently, “We both know that doesn’t mean you’ll see it. People mention us a thousand times day. See,” he points to Harry’s twitter after he refreshes it, “Four girls tweeted you since we started this conversation. If you just keep staring at the comments, it’s just going to get under your skin.”

“I know that. I do, I know that, Liam. I just…”

“I know, Haz. It’s hard to know that’s out there and people are looking at it and laughing at it and if you don’t look at it, you won’t know what they’re laughing at.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sure management will take it down soon. They’re usually pretty good at that.”

Harry snorts, “Unless they decide this is good publicity and use it to keep us in the spotlight. Never wanted to be in the spotlight for my skin, though.”

“Look at it this way,” Liam says, “Maybe you can pull a Katy Perry or an Adam Levine and be the next Proactiv spokesperson.”

“Nah,” Harry says, pulling his head off Liam’s chest and already looking more like himself, “I think Bieber did it last. Don’t fancy following in his footsteps.”

“Perfectly understandable. Now, you ready to go record? Promise you won’t let this bother you any more than it already has?”

“I promise,” Harry says, smiling that brilliant smile that keeps half the world around his little finger.

They walk into the recording booth together, between takes, and join the rest of the boys. After they’re done, the song completely finished and ready to be released as a single in the next few weeks, the lads decide to get take out dinner together.

They have one day off between shows, and they spend it lounging in Niall’s room. Harry admits the zit thing was bothering him. By the time Niall and Louis are done making the newly dubbed Mt. Vesuvius into a smiley face, Harry’s eyes are gleaming again and all is right in the world.

Zayn’s lying his head on Liam’s stomach as they both half watch the wrestling match going on next to them and half watch the crap telly. “You talked him ‘round earlier, then?”

“Yeah, he just needed to get pulled out of his own head, I think,” Liam says softly.

“Sensible Liam,” Zayn murmurs and closes his eyes when Liam’s fingers find their way into his hair.

That’s not the end of Harry’s Zit unfortunately. Over the next few days the media catches on the twitter and its 12,000 followers and it becomes a _thing_. Liam sees a link on twitter to Sugarscape that reports just on Harry’s zit. A whole article. Like, is that really newsworthy?

Liam politely asks David if management are going to take everything down, after all, this is hurting Harry. David frowns and it makes his whole face sink, but he tells Liam that no, they are not going to do anything about it because they need the publicity with the single about to be out. And since the press isn’t negative, _relatable_ even, they’re going to use the boost to release the single earlier than planned. Liam curses David out in his head. Then he tells Louis, who does curse David out.

But the articles and the twitter are left up even after Harry’s zit fades back into his smooth skin.

.

..

…

..

.

A few nights later, Louis wants to go out. He invites everyone after the concert. Zayn opts out and surprisingly, Niall does too. Niall went out the last few nights and he says he’s down for a marathon of something if Zayn is. Liam is about to hop on the marathon bandwagon when he catches Louis’ eye. Louis is _begging_ him to go, pleading with his eyes. And when Liam thinks about it, Harry hasn’t said yes or no and if he decides to go and Liam stays behind… Louis and Harry would be by themselves. Liam doesn’t see how that would be a bad thing. They obviously have some issues to work out.

He keeps seeing Louis’ flabbergasted face at the suggestion of Harry being in love with him, and he folds. If Louis isn’t ready to confront Harry and doesn’t want to be alone with him, then Liam can help him out.

“Yeah, sure, I’m in for a night out,” he says and Louis beams. “How about you Harry? You deserve a night out.” Louis stops beaming.

Harry smiles and unconsciously touches his face where the zit has calmed down to just a discolored red spot on his face. One swipe of make-up is enough to cover it now. “Yeah, ‘o course. I’m in. Someone’s got to watch you two.”

Liam smiles and agrees to meet them in a few minutes after he changes. Zayn and Niall head to Niall’s room.

Ten minutes later, he’s in a pair of skinny jeans and a white shirt with a blazer over it.

The club is packed, but Louis only ever finds great places for them to go, so Liam doesn’t mind. The place is banging, and he can feel the bass in his bones, the vibration of the floor moving up into his shoes. When they walk in, there’s a Justin Timberlake song playing and Liam knows he’s in for a good night.

And it is a good night. Except for the drinking contest he challenges Louis to a few hours later, that part wasn’t that great. The outcome, at least. During the actual drinking contest, it’s a blast. People recognize the signs of a contest and not them, for once, and there’s a small crowd around their booth watching them knock back pints of beer and cheering them on. Liam sees one or two camera phones, but he doesn’t care.

It’s poor Harry who suffers the most, having to help him and Louis back to the hotel. Liam thinks he sleeps in the car ride back, or he had his eyes closed or something, because he doesn’t remember it at all.

Liam leans heavily on Harry as they walk down the cold hallway. Harry’s right arm holds Liam up, while his left supports a barely manageable Louis.

Liam smiles giddily at Louis’ antics – he pokes Harry in the cheek, right in the dimple. “Where’s your dimple, Harry? I wanna see it. You gotta smile for me.”

“C’mon Lou. You can see my dimples in a minute. We gotta drop Liam off.”

Liam’s watching the floor now, one foot in front of the other on the garish red carpeting. If he didn’t know they were back at the hotel, this carpet would give their location away. Liam frowns. He’s sad that he can tell a hotel by the carpet alone.

“Where’re we takin’ Liam, then?”

Harry is so patient, he really is the angel that everyone thinks he is. Liam never has this kind of patience dealing with drunk Louis. Even now, just as drunk as Louis, he doesn’t have patience for this – and it’s slightly his fault that Louis got this way.

“I’m going to drop him off at Zayn’s,” Harry says, reassuring Louis as he leans even more weight on him. Liam thinks Harry might collapse from the pressure and eases his own weight off his mate a bit.

Liam counts the white doors on his right. Four from the lift so far, they have three more to go to Zayn’s room. Liam’s is right across the hall and he laughs that it doesn’t even occur to Harry to drop him off in his own room. Though, knowing Harry, he probably thinks Liam is as bad as Louis and needs a vomit bucket and like a shower or something.

Liam isn’t that bad, he tells himself.

Then promptly trips over his own feet.

Luckily, he catches himself on Zayn’s door. Harry props Louis up against the doorframe and then knocks. To no one’s surprise, Zayn does not answer.

Harry rolls his eyes and reaches into Liam’s back pocket for his wallet, opens it up and takes out two card keys. “Which one is Zayn’s?” He asks Liam.

How the hell is Liam supposed to know? He shrugs, “The back one maybe?”

Louis giggles into his hand at something that only he thinks is funny. Harry knocks again, like a last Hail Mary, then tries the card Liam indicated.

The little green light buzzes them in and Harry breathes out an audible sigh of relief. Liam punches him lightly on the shoulder. “Reckon I got it from here,” he says, stumbling into the dark room.

“You sure?” He looks into the room. From the long line of light the open door creates, they can see Zayn’s feet sticking out of the bottom of his duvet. The feet stir.

“Liam?”

“Hey, Zayn,” Harry says, “It’s me. Can you make sure Liam’s okay tonight? I’d watch him but Louis’ hammered too and he takes more eyes. Figured Liam’d be easier for you.”

“Liam’d be easy for him, alright,” Louis mumbles and then giggles again.

There’s a shuffling sound that Liam can barely hear over Louis’ mad giggles. Then Zayn’s standing at the door with the duvet wrapped around him, looking like some spoiled prince or something. Liam doesn’t think he’s beautiful.

“Sure, Harry. I got him.”

“Thanks, mate. See you in the morning.”

“G’night Harry.” They watch Harry corral Louis into Harry’s room across the hall. “C’mon, then, I’m beyond knackered. Bed time.”

He feels a hand on his shoulder, looks down and sees one hand peeking out of the duvet. He follows the pull of Zayn’s hand.

“Seems like you’re always making me go to bed.”

Zayn chuffs a laugh, “I’m always stuck taking care of your drunk arse.”

“Hey!” Liam manages to sound mock offended. He jumps onto the bed, bouncing up and down a few times. “‘M not always drunk when you take care of my arse.”

“That’s true,” Zayn says, crawling carefully onto the other side of the bed, completely the opposite of Liam’s entrance. They settle in, Zayn spreading the covers out again, now that there are two people in the bed.

Liam isn’t tired is the thing. He throws his hands up behind his head, lying flat out on his back and staring at a ceiling that he can’t quite see. His eyes haven’t adjusted to the dark. He feels like he’s still waiting to adjust to the dark. Always waiting.

He’s still completely dressed. The material of his shirt tickles his skin and his trousers are cutting into his hip bones. He sits up, trying not to disturb Zayn who he can tell by his breathing hasn’t gone back to sleep yet. He throws his trainers in the direction he remembers the bathroom being earlier today when he visited this room. His trousers and shirt follow quickly, landing close together based on the soft thumps they make when they land on the floor.

Finally, he can breathe. He flips over onto his left, staring at Zayn’s bared back. He pulls the covers up to his nose, trying to warm himself in the chilly room. The duvet smells like Zayn. It smells like Zayn in the morning making coffee, it smells like Zayn at night, watching a movie on a shared iPad. It smells like laundry detergent and home.

He can’t sleep and he’s still cold a few minutes later. He gathers as much as he can of the duvet, knowing that the more he has the less Zayn has. He can’t let Zayn get cold either, he has less body mass to keep him warm. He shifts closer to Zayn to share body heat, bringing his chest to Zayn’s broad back, one arm slung around his stomach.

The thought hadn’t even crossed his mind until then as to why Zayn answered the door with the duvet on. The answer, Liam finds ten minutes later, is that Zayn is naked. The duvet was to cover his nakedness as much as it probably was to keep him warm. Now, with Zayn’s naked arse scant millimeters from him, Liam’s thinking maybe he should have asked before making himself comfortable.

To his surprise, though, Zayn just snuggles into his chest, his breathing deepening. Liam finds himself absentmindedly rubbing Zayn’s stomach.

The ceiling is a bit clearer now. It’s only been a few minutes and he can count the cracks. His mind whirls with the leftover alcohol and Liam wishes he could wish himself to sleep.

“Zayn?” he asks into the darkness, “Are you awake?”

He nudges Zayn’s neck with his nose.

“I am now,” he says back, sleep heavy in his voice.

Liam has to ask. He needs to know the truth and Zayn can be counted on to give an honest answer, even if it’s not what Liam wants to hear. He kisses the back of Zayn’s neck before blurting out, “What if that was my only chance? Like, you know, what if no one else wants me?”

He’s ashamed at how pathetic he sounds. Zayn turns around in his arms, and Liam’s mind goes white for a split second thinking that the only thing separating their cocks is his briefs.

“Liam, plenty of people want you,” he says. Zayn looks deeply into his eyes, one hand coming up to hold his face, to show the seriousness of his words. Liam is stunned. Zayn’s saying this like the answer is obvious – but to Liam, it’s not. It’s just not an obvious answer. Just because he’s famous and celebrated for being different now doesn’t mean the years of ridicule and bullying just magically go away. Fuck, the fact that the girl he crushed on for years finally “saw” him once he became famous, but was really only using him for his fame and didn’t give two shits about him? Yeah, that’s enough to make a bloke question himself.

“I’m not talking about fans,” he says across the distance.

Zayn’s eyes are pulling him in, their noses are almost touching and Liam honestly has no idea if it’s him closing the distance or not. Zayn has never looked more serious, “I’m not either, mate.”

The hand holding Liam’s face starts to brush soothingly along his two day beard, rubbing with the grain. Liam’s eyes never leave Zayn’s, but he tracks Zayn’s fingers as that hypnotizing thumb travels down his cheek and onto his neck. The thumb comes to the birthmark he knows sits right beside his Adam’s apple and it starts rubbing in circles.

“You’re so good, Liam. So perfect,” He whispers in the dark, that intoxicating thumb making it hard for Liam to think. He’s overwhelmed with Zayn’s voice and Zayn’s eyes and Zayn’s fingers and all he wants is _more_. He doesn’t know what it is he wants, just knows it’s _more_.

Zayn’s nose bucks his, “Let me make you feel good, Liam.”

Permission, Liam belatedly realizes. Zayn’s asking for permission. Liam nods before the synapses in his brain finish comprehending what Zayn’s asking permission _for._

Zayn smiles against his lips and it’s the most intimate thing Liam has ever experienced. He can taste Zayn’s happiness, his longing, his need, the cigarette he had before bed. Despite asking for permission, Zayn waits for Liam to close the gap between them. Liam’s teeth grab Zayn’s bottom lip and latch on as lightly as he can manage.

Their mouths slot together, a little awkwardly at first. Liam’s a little hesitant, he’s never kissed a boy before, but this is Zayn. He’s done a lot of things with Zayn that he wouldn’t do with anyone else, boy or girl. He’s cried in front of him, sobbed in his arms. He’s shown Zayn parts of himself that no one else has ever seen. He’s happy to share this with Zayn.

Plus, it feels _fucking amazing_. Zayn’s doing something with his tongue that Liam hasn’t experienced before and Liam can’t think, can’t breathe, can’t control himself. He pushes closer, now intimately aware that the only thing separating their thickening cocks is his briefs.

His hips stutter against Zayn’s, unsure of their welcome, unsure how exactly this works between them, but his dick wants to be close to Zayn’s and his hands don’t want to leave his skin.

Liam pushes the covers off Zayn, exposing his glorious skin to the room he can mostly see now. He feels Zayn groan more than he can hear it and he’s surprised at how the vibrations go straight through his body, down past his dick to his toes. A shiver runs through him. He did that. He caused that sound.

Zayn flips them over, landing sprawled out on top of Liam. “Let me make you feel as good as you are, yeah?” He kisses Liam again, a quick peck followed by a trail of kisses down from his lips to his neck, his tongue echoing the earlier actions of his thumb, circling slowly around his birthmark. “God, want to make you feel so good.”

“You do,” Liam says, his back arching to feel Zayn’s tongue as his head makes its way closer to where Liam wants it. “You make me feel amazing.”

Zayn pauses at Liam’s belly button, poking his pink tongue in it, blowing a soft raspberry before continuing downward, licking a long stripe against his happy trail.

Finally, Liam looks down and sees Zayn’s mouth a hair’s breadth from his dick.

“Please,” he says, putting his hand on the back of Zayn’s head lightly, asking permission to remain.

Those beautiful hazel eyes flirt upwards under heavy lashes and Zayn smirks. Mother fucking _smirks_ before he swallows Liam to the hilt.

Where the fuck did he learn that? Liam wonders to himself, too breathless to say it out loud.

Zayn pulls off, a line of spit falling down past his lips. He keeps looking at Liam while he kisses the head of Liam’s wet dick. Liam lets a whimper escape his lips when Zayn starts rolling his tongue around the head, teasing him.

“C’mon, need it. Please, Zayn.”

“Very well,” he says and starts up a rhythm, making sure to lick the vein on the underside. Liam’s other hand finds its way into Zayn’s hair, both hands pulling on the silky strands. He can’t help himself, he doesn’t want to hurt Zayn, but God, the feeling is too much.

Zayn’s mouth is hot and wet and has the perfect suction and, fuck, it’s _Zayn’s_ mouth and there’s something to that, Liam thinks, just as he’s looking down at Zayn’s mouth devouring his cock over and over again. It’s the hottest thing he’s ever seen.

“Close,” he says, and Zayn takes that as a challenge because he backs off, leaving Liam right at the edge. “No. No, wanna come.”

Zayn smiles again from below those long eye lashes and he looks saucy, like some sort of seductive force of nature – Liam has never seen him like this and it’s rocking his world just as much as the agonizingly good head is.

Zayn pulls off completely, climbing back up the bed with an arch in his back and his hips swinging enticingly. He kisses Liam chastely, once, twice, before settling his body on top of Liam again and sinking his tongue into Liam’s mouth. Zayn’s cock ruts against his hip, leaving pools of pre-come against Liam’s skin.

A hand comes between them, locking their cocks together, the friction is beautiful. Liam’s mouth gapes open and he tastes Zayn’s smile again. He aches for release, for that sweet moment of oblivion.

Liam pushes against Zayn’s shoulder, pushing him over onto his back, ready to take charge for the first time. Zayn looks surprised, his mouth a perfect “O” – Liam thinks he can find something to do with that mouth again later, for now he takes over jacking their dicks together, riding the wave closer and closer until he can feel himself at the zenith and he slips over, Zayn just seconds behind.

He pulses in waves across his hand and Zayn’s stomach, their come mixing together to make one large mess in Zayn’s hard to come by chest hair. Liam collapses on top of Zayn, getting the come on his stomach too.

What’s a lad supposed to do after the best orgasm of his life? Jumping jacks?

They pant together, and Liam realizes a second or two later that their breaths are in sync and he laughs. They’ve been practicing singing as part of a group for so long, practicing listening and matching with the rest of the group that even in a situation like this they unconsciously slip into it. And Liam smiles because, yeah, that kind of felt unifying, didn’t it?

“Crushing me,” Zayn says, still out of breath.

“Sorry, mate,” Liam rolls off him, landing on his side, back to Zayn and reaches over the side of the bed for a sock he thinks may have landed closer to the bed. He finds a pair and uses one to wipe his chest off, offering the other relatively clean one to Zayn, who mops himself up with it.

They sit there in stunned silence for a beat longer before Liam gathers up his courage, pulls Zayn against his chest again, and they both breathe out. Liam slips into sleep between one blink and the next, his mind carefully blank.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The calm before the storm...

They have to be up early the next day, one of the reasons Zayn had elected not to go out with Harry and Louis the night before. Liam hears Zayn’s obnoxious alarm go off before the sun has completely come up.

They have to be up early, but not that early. Liam pokes Zayn in the shoulder with his free hand, his other hand is trapped beneath Zayn’s body and feels like it’s been asleep for a while. Ten seconds into the alarm shrieking at them, Zayn starts to wake up. He leans out of Liam’s embrace, toward the nightstand where he left his phone and turns the alarm off.

Liam closes his eyes and pulls the covers up again, ready to go back to sleep for an hour until the real alarm goes off. When he doesn’t feel Zayn re-join him, he squinches one eye open. Zayn’s sitting up, feet hanging off the bed and rubbing his eyes. His back is completely uncovered and Liam thinks he looks glorious in the early morning light streaming through the floor to ceiling windows.

Zayn rubs his eyes, trying to clear the sleep from them. He gets up and walks into the bathroom, bare-arsed and lithe. Liam takes a moment to appreciate the way Zayn moves. He never consciously considered Zayn _that_ way before, but after the events of last night, well, it seems silly to pretend that he isn’t attracted to Zayn. It’s silly to pretend he doesn’t want a repeat.

The door closes behind him, and Liam can only see the yellow line of light underneath the closed door. He starts to drowse again, still fighting the effects of the alcohol from the night before.

He’s awoken again when he hears Zayn talking.

“Hey babe, you alright, yeah?”

Liam thinks he’s still dreaming for a minute, caught in that no-man’s-land between wakefulness and the dream realm. But then Zayn speaks again and Liam’s heart sinks.

“Perrie, babe. Can you hear me?”

There’s nothing for Liam to do except to pretend to be asleep. He listens to the whole conversation, and when his alarm goes off an hour later, he walks across the hallway to his own room in a borrowed robe.

Zayn doesn’t look at him on his way out.

.

..

…

..

.

The next few days are rough for Liam. They have back to back concerts in the United States, and they’re exhausted. They have just enough time each day to get to the next city while napping on the tour bus as best they can, before their team sets up the equipment and they’re in sound check. Then, by the time they do whatever interview is for that day and get changed, they’re performing.

The concerts are still electrifying after all this time. There’s nothing in the world like the feeling of performing for thousands of people.

Except maybe Zayn’s mouth on his dick.

Which he hasn’t mentioned, alluded to, or acknowledged in any way, shape, or form since said mouth popped off his dick.

Liam’s a bit confused. Because as far as Liam remembers, it’s was Zayn’s idea for the cock sucking in the first place, he didn’t coerce him or anything. Liam spends a broody bus ride from Tulsa to New Orleans wondering if he somehow coerced his best friend.

It’s not that Zayn’s acting weird, or anything. He’s not behaving out of the ordinary at all, except maybe he’s a tiny bit more reluctant to touch Liam casually. But that could be in Liam’s head.

It’ just that they haven’t talked about it, or, fuck, even made significant eye contact about it like they do sometimes. It’s driving Liam crazy.

He feels guilty, terribly, terribly guilty because Zayn’s with someone. Zayn’s with Perrie, and in the heat of the moment, Liam completely forgot about her, she didn’t even cross his drunken mind and Liam isn’t that type of person. He doesn’t mess around with other people’s relationships. Liam’s not a home wrecker, he doesn’t sleep with people for just casual sex.

And that’s what’s bothering him the most, he thinks. He doesn’t sleep with people for casual sex. Sex has always, always, meant something to him more than two bodies bumping each other or whatever, and taking into account that it was Zayn and not some random person from a club or whatever, Liam’s hurt and silently freaking out.

But, then, was it even _casual_ sex? He and Zayn have never done casual anything. They went from strangers who had one previous conversation in a McDonald’s to bandmates and best mates. There was virtually no overlap. That idea scares Liam even more than the casual sex, though, so he pushes it out of his conscious mind down into that big iceberg of dark stuff he doesn’t allow himself to think about. They really need to discuss the sex.

He’s careful about bringing it up, very hesitant, but he needs to talk about it. Zayn shuts him down before he can even work the conversation around that way.

“Liam, don’t,” he says and gets up to go smoke out the back way of the stadium.

Even with the tension between Zayn and Liam, the concerts go well. It’s like in public they have to still be them, still patting each other’s bums, still pouring water down each other’s backs to stay cool, but as soon as they’re alone together, it’s awkward. It’s awkward in a way that it’s never ever been awkward with Zayn before.

Liam can’t think of a single time when things have been awkward with Zayn. Fuck, even when Zayn was sucking his dick, it wasn’t awkward. Just intimate.

Here they are at another venue, one of their last few of this tour. Liam already mourns the end of this. Sure he’s beyond tired, but this is what he loves best on the planet. Singing songs with his four best lads.

They’re in Atlanta, set to play in the aptly named Georgia Dome. It looks like every other stadium they’ve played in at this point. It’s so hot in Georgia, no European can ever appreciate how hot it’s going to be in the Southern United States in the height of summer, and it’s only early October.

The crowd is screaming at Harry and Niall shaking their arses in time together. Louis’ standing next to them clapping his hands on the beat, like he’s directing them and, God, even Liam has to laugh at that. Louis does have a talent for managing things.

Their first twitter question that night is to impersonate each other. An old favorite, for both the fans and for them. Liam does an impression of Harry before anyone else, knowing that he’s pretty easy to impersonate – just long rolling sentences and a point of a story that goes nowhere. The fans eat it up. Harry does Zayn, and it’s pretty funny, he’s obviously been practicing.

The rest of the lads go, and suddenly it’s Liam’s turn to read the next twitter question. He doesn’t even skim it before he starts reading it aloud, and by the time he reads off the smiley face tacked onto the end, his heart beat is frantic and he can feel the blood rushing to his face.

“Who was your Last First Kiss and was it special? Xx 0:D”

Traditionally, in the unspoken rules of their twitter questions, the reader answers first. Liam swallows the lump in his throat. He can’t go first, he just can’t. He’s got to think up what to say and how to phrase his thoughts.

“Louis, why don’t you go first,” he says, nodding across the stage to him, knowing that Louis will go with it, but will definitely ask questions later.

“Sure, Liam. My last first kiss was with a very special woman and we’re still together today,” he says into his microphone. There are loud cheers from the crowd, a few boos, and a lot of shrieks.

“Mine,” Niall says, trying to speak over the volume of their fans, “mine was with a lovely lass in Chicago. It was just a laugh, though, I’m still single.”

A few girls scream, “Niall I love you,” and he smiles graciously and lasciviously at the same time. Which is a feat.

As the leader for the question, Liam prods Harry who’s standing next to him, throwing an arm around the taller boy’s shoulders. “How about you, Harold? Care to share?”

Harry smiles shyly with a touch of vulnerability that Liam envies him for. “Not someone special in the romantic sense,” he says, “but it was enjoyable, Liam, thank you for asking.”

Liam pulls his hand off Harry’s shoulder and does a mock bow to him. He feels the nerves creeping up on him now, he can’t put it off any longer. He opens his mouth to speak, unsure of what’s going to come out when Zayn interrupts him, “My last kiss wasn’t on anyone’s mouth,” he says to the shrieks of the girls in the audience.

Liam’s embarrassed and a bit pissed off. For one thing, he feels cheap. Like he was just a quick fuck to Zayn, like them being together hadn’t sprung up from Liam sharing his insecurities with Zayn who reassured him that he was perfect as he is – like his behavior now wasn’t showing Liam the opposite of that. Liam can feel tears prickle at his eyes and hell no, that is not okay right now. He swallows them down, chokes down the sadness and tries to focus on the anger.

“And now me,” he says, trying to think of something he can say to make Zayn feel as little as him right now, something that will make Zayn feel like shit. Instead, what comes out is pure honesty, “My last first kiss was my last kiss, and it was with someone very special who I care a great deal about. It was a bloody fantastic kiss and while I hope it happens again, I doubt it will. Next question.”

He looks to Louis, as it’s his turn to read the next question. Zayn’s standing next to him, looking like he got the rug pulled out from under him.

“No, no, no,” Louis says, doing what he does best and inciting chaos, “we can’t go on to the next question until Zayn takes it seriously.”

Liam knows in that moment that Louis either knows or heavily suspects what happened between Liam and Zayn. He wouldn’t have that Eureka face otherwise. Liam kind of hates him right now.

“Zaynie?” Louis puts his own microphone in Zayn’s face with an expectant look.

Anticipation swells in Liam’s stomach. Zayn leans forward into the mic, “Well, I wasn’t lying, mate, but I suppose I didn’t answer the ‘special’ part of the question. It was special,” he catches Liam’s eye and Liam sees it for the apology that he means it, “it was very, very special. I loved every second of it.”

“There you have it,” Louis says, looking up to the board for the next question.  
  
Harry, bless him, the only rational lad of the lot, covers for them, “Don’t ever kiss anyone not on the lips unless it’s going to be special,” he says sternly, as sternly as Harry can manage, “unless we’re talking like the cheek or something. That’s acceptable.”

“Very polite in some societies,” Niall adds, kissing Harry’s cheek in demonstration.

“Oh God,” Liam says, “Can we move on already?” But he can feel the smile on his face. Things feel right again, but there’s a tension in the air and when he meets Zayn’s eyes again, he sees the naked look of desire in them. Zayn doesn’t look away and neither does Liam.

Liam remembers the rest of their Atlanta concert as a blur.

.

..

…

..

.

They have an eight hour drive to Tampa that night, and an interview scheduled for noon the next day.

The lads play a few rounds of Fifa on the bus to help them wind down after the high of the concert, since they are unable to go out on the town. The exhaustion sits heavily on them and Niall is the first to crash, right there on the couch between Harry and Liam.

Harry allows him to rest his head on his shoulder, and Liam predicts that Harry will be asleep within the hour as well. Liam nudges Zayn with his elbow, they’re sitting so close that he can feel every time Zayn takes a breath. Zayn looks at Harry and Niall and holds up his hand, five fingers outstretched.

Liam shakes his head, he doesn’t think Harry will be asleep in five minutes. He shrugs at Zayn.

“Are you even playing, Zayn?” Louis asks from the floor.

Zayn looks back at the screen, his character doing nothing productive. “Yeah, Louis, just a bit knackered, that’s all.”

They play for a few more minutes, Liam talking smack for both of them and commentating where he feels it’s needed. It’s a serious job.

“Alright, mates,” Zayn says, putting his controller down after Louis’ team scored on him, “I’m going to me bunk.” His hand slips to Liam’s thigh, like he’s going to use it as leverage to get up, then slips higher, massaging up and up and up until he’s almost touching Liam completely. “Don’t stay up too late.”

“No promises,” Louis calls, still playing against Zayn’s unresponsive team.

“I’ll stay up as late as I want,” Liam says, teasing Zayn as much as Zayn’s fingers are teasing him.

Zayn leans forward until his lips are touching Liam’s ear, “I’d like it if you didn’t keep me _up_ ,” he whispers into Liam’s ear. “I already have such a _hard_ time getting to sleep these days, being so cold and all.”

Liam gulps in air. His thighs flex and relax under Zayn’s fingers. “I’ll do what I can,” he says back, looking pointedly at Louis and back to Zayn, “Try to keep it down for you.”

“That’s all I ask,” Zayn winks and then saunters out of the gaming room, sliding the wooden door behind him.

Liam accidentally on purpose hits Harry hard enough to wake him up. “Sorry Hazza,” he says, “Here, you want a go with Louis? I’m heading to bed.”

Harry looks at him through sleepy eyes and just blinks. Liam puts Zayn’s abandoned controller in his hands and pats him roughly on the head.

“Just play a round or two with Louis so he can get to sleep, Haz,” Liam feels a tinge of guilt using Harry’s feelings for Louis against him so that he can go do dirty things with Zayn, but not enough to take it back.

After all, he couldn’t have mistaken what Zayn had been offering.

Liam doesn’t leave until he secures a promise from Harry to play two rounds with Louis before going back to sleep. Then Liam slips through the sliding door to their bunks, a knot in his stomach. He peers into Zayn’s bunk to find it empty. Then he hears it – low, heavy breathing coming from his own bunk.

If Zayn’s doing what he thinks he’s doing, Liam might die at the sight. Sure enough, as he walks the two or three steps closer to the curtain blocking his bunk from the narrow walkway, he hears a quiet whimper of, “Liam,” and he’s just done. Fucking gone.

His shirt is off before he remembers thinking it needs to come off. The curtain slides open, and there’s Zayn completely naked and fisting his length on Liam’s bed. “What took you so long,” he asks, panting heavily.

Liam _looks_ for a solid minute, just taking in the sight, burning it into his memories so as not to ever be forgotten. Zayn’s legs are bent at the knee, his head thrown back, but his eyes on Liam.

“Are you going to join me, or just watch?”

Liam starts unbuttoning his trousers, “Both sound good, actually, but I’ll watch another time.”

Zayn smirks for just a brief second before it morphs back into a look of pure pleasure as Liam wraps his hand around his cock, replacing Zayn’s. Liam leans in to kiss him. Their lips meet ferociously, tongues arguing. Liam vents his frustration with Zayn over the last few days in the healthiest way he can manage, through their kiss. He wants to ask why Zayn thought he wasn’t good enough. He wants to ask why Zayn pretended it hadn’t happened. He wants to ask why it’s happening again.

He knows better now. He takes it as it comes and lets the tsunami of Zayn carry him away, lets it strip his skin from his bones and drown his lungs.

He lets Zayn sink into every pore of his skin and tries to force him to stay there.

Liam feels nimble fingers pulling on his briefs until they fall down to his ankles and Zayn uses his toes to remove them.

“Shit, Li,” Zayn says, “Want you to fuck me. Want you to fuck me so bad.”

Liam’s head explodes, he thinks of sinking into Zayn, of putting his mark there, of the tight heat Zayn would be. He has to pinch himself so that he doesn’t come from the thought alone.

“’S no time for that babe,” is what he ends up saying, because it’s true. Louis and Harry might come in at any minute and Liam would be lying if he said that didn’t add to the appeal.

“Then what do you want?” Zayn asks, nibbling on Liam’s birthmark. “What do you want if you don’t want to fuck me.”

“I do want to fuck you,” Liam insists, feeling their cocks sliding alongside each other, “want to fuck you more than you know, but we need an actual bed for that. And proper lube.”

Liam may have done some illicit research after the last time.

“Then what do you want?”

Liam can feel himself blush, he can’t believe Zayn is making him say what he wants, “I want to make you feel as good as you made me feel.”

“You want me to blow you again?” Zayn asks, reaching up to kiss Liam again.

“No,” Liam says between kisses, “I… you.”

“You what?” Zayn bites down on his jaw and Liam’s eyes roll into his head.

He can feel his hips moving minutely, unconsciously, and he purposefully stops. He doesn’t want this to be over too soon. He doesn’t know when Zayn will ever allow this again.

“I want to suck you,” he says, looking directly into Zayn’s eyes. “Please Zayn, may I suck you?”

He sees Zayn’s speechless nod and smiles. He kisses him on the forehead, then on the lips chastely, and then places little kisses everywhere he’s wanted to for the last week. He kisses his neck, leaving trails of his tongue in every undiscovered corner. “God, you’re so beautiful,” he whispers against his will.

He pays a lot of attention to his collar bones, before he thinks he better get on it before their time is up. He’ll hopefully have another opportunity to learn Zayn completely.

It’s hard to reach all the way to Zayn’s cock in the tiny little bunk, but they make do. Liam pats his hips until Zayn gets the hint and scoots up as far as he can. Liam still can’t really reach his cock. He starts thinking logistically, he could have Zayn sit on the edge of the bunk.

“Liam, babe, I have an idea,” Zayn says and starts moving. He pushes Liam down onto his back, his head where his feet usually are and once he’s completely lying down, Zayn flips around, his arse in Liam’s face and Liam groans at the sight. It’s a skinny little arse, but it’s magnificent.

“This way,” he says over his shoulder, “we can both do each other.”

Liam wonders if he will ever get used to this, instead, he feels his brain exploding for the second time in two minutes. He feels Zayn’s lips find the head of his cock and he just luxuriates under the feeling for a minute. He opens his eyes and sees his prize above him. He licks the slit and Zayn’s mouth groans around his cock, their pleasure a feedback loop. Zayn sucks all the salty pre-come out that he can before he goes for it.

He’s never given a blow job in his life, but he’s had them done and knows what he likes. He does his best to replicate it for Zayn, licking the slit, sucking on just the head, bobbing in an even rhythm until his jaw might fall off. His hands hold Zayn’s hips above him and when he gathers enough courage, starts rocking them into his mouth, gagging a bit, but giving Zayn permission to fuck his mouth.

He feels a squeal around his own cock, but he’s paying so much attention to making this as best as he can for Zayn that all he really takes in is a shock of pleasure in a constant stream. With a few more thrusts, he feels Zayn start to come and he hums as hard as he can, taking him in as far as he can until he chokes on the come spurting down his throat. Some escapes his lips and he wipes his mouth with his hand and then onto the sheets.

“Oh my God,” Zayn says, “Oh my God. Do you practice that?”

“No,” Liam says, now cognizant of his own need to come, balancing precariously on the edge of orgasm.

“Good,” Zayn says before they both freeze. The sliding door is opening. Shit, Liam thinks.

They sit there, unmoving, with Zayn still on all fours above him and backwards, the only thing hiding them from whoever just entered the bunk area is the thin flowery curtain. Liam can’t remember if Zayn’s bunk had the curtain closed. He hopes whoever it is doesn’t check on Zayn and see him not there. He hopes they don’t check on him and see them like this. Liam isn’t ready for that conversation.

By the double set of footsteps, Liam realizes Harry and Louis both came to bed. They stop right outside Liam’s bunk and he can almost see them through the curtain.

“Louis,” Harry whispers, “can I sleep in your bunk with you tonight?”

“Why?” Louis asks, and Liam can hear the reluctance in his voice.

Harry must too, but he presses on, “I just miss you. I feel like we’re drifting apart. I don’t think this will magically fix things, or anything, but I just…” Liam can feel Zayn’s legs starting to tremble above him, the orgasm making his limbs weak and Liam remembers his own burning need, cock thick and full between his legs, a little cold in the night air with Zayn’s spit on it, “I just want to feel close to you, even if it’s just for the night.”

Liam’s heart breaks for Harry just as he finds he’s annoyed with them – couldn’t they have waited five minutes longer?

“Sure, Harry,” Louis says, “You know I miss you too. You’re my best mate and you always will be, okay? No matter what happens.”

They crawl into the upper bunk, Louis’, and Harry plays the 1975 on his iPhone really quietly. Zayn and Liam are still frozen, but when the music starts to play, Zayn starts to lick at the slit of his dick again and Liam can’t believe it – is he really going to keep going with their very much awake friends _right there_? Apparently so because he graduates to bobbing up and down again when the music gets a bit louder and Liam has his own fist in his mouth to keep him from making any noise until it’s too much and he feels himself being pushed off the cliff like the Wile E. Coyote looney tunes and he sinks down, down, down, and Zayn’s dutifully swallowing his come.

He can’t believe they just did that. He really cannot believe that just happened.

Zayn waits until another loud part of the song comes along, ignoring the whispers between Harry and Louis, and turns around as quietly as he can until he’s pressing a kiss into Liam’s neck, right over his birthmark, and then resting his head on Liam’s chest, already breathing like he’s asleep.

It takes Liam a bit longer to fall asleep, but he sets his alarm for early enough to get Zayn back into his clothes and out of Liam’s bunk before the other lads can wake up.

.

..

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..

.

The thing is, it keeps happening. It’s like now that they opened the floodgates, they can’t stop.

Liam finds himself on his knees the next day before their sound check in Tampa. Zayn sucks him off in the dressing room. They give each other handy jays in the club bathroom when they go out with Niall that night after the concert, and they fall asleep in the same bed, curled up together like puppies.

It just keeps happening, and Liam… well, Liam hates how much he loves it.

Zayn makes him feel things he didn’t know he could even feel. And by that, he means he wants to watch him sleeping, he wants to hold his hand while they watch _Arrested Development_ , he wants to sing to him onstage. That last one he does already, has done since X-factor days, but now there’s an extra edge to it. Zayn blushes. It’s the cutest thing ever.

Also, Liam keeps finding things Zayn does _adorable_ , and really that’s the scariest thing of all. Sure, anybody could find Harry adorable, you have to not have a heart or working eyes and sometimes working ears to not find Harry Styles charming and adorable, but no straight man looks at Zayn Malik and says, yeah that guy does some cute things too.

No. Straight guys look at Zayn and think his leather jacket is as sick as his tattoos and they wish that girls would look at them the way girls look at Zayn. They do not think he is overwhelmingly beautiful. Liam has this on good authority. Paul said so.

Consequently, Liam is starting to think he’s not a straight guy. The fact that he likes to have Zayn’s dick in his mouth kind of supports that conclusion. He’s surprisingly okay with it.

After all, he’s always been a bit weird about Zayn – they’ve always been close and he’s always treated Zayn just a bit differently than one is supposed to treat a best mate. So, really, evolving into something _more_ , friends with benefits, doesn’t feel strange. Rather, it feels like the next step in the closest friendship of his life. Two mates helping each other out when one of them is newly single for the first time in years, and the other’s girlfriend is on the other side of the ocean.

Yeah, Liam thinks, just two mates helping each other. Nothing weird about it.

Nothing at all.

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..

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..

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They do one more show in the United States before the tour is officially over. Liam’s taken by surprise.

The tour is their life for so long, for months and months, with breaks here and there, but always knowing that eventually they have to go back, have to get back on the road, have to sit in Niall’s smelly farts in cramped, small, spaces.

In a way, the tour bus feels more like home than their flats and houses in London do.

Not that Liam has a flat to go home to. He should probably do something to change that.

And he probably should have thought of that before they are literally getting off the plane at Heathrow. Really, Liam? Spoiled celebrity who doesn’t have to think about things like where he will live, or if he’s changed the utilities at his old place out of his name and into Sophia’s. Has he been paying those? Is this going to affect his credit score?

Fuck it. He doesn’t need a credit score.

“Leeyum,” Zayn says tentatively as they dodge the paps, one hand snaking around his lower back like it belongs there. “Where are you staying?”

“I was just gonna invite myself over to Louis’ I guess.”

Which they both know is weird. Before they started up, Liam would be inviting himself over to Zayn’s place and they both know it. Zayn, cognizant of the cameras and screams around them, leans close to Liam’s ear, “That’s stupid. You’re totally welcome at my house. I insist, in fact. We’ll finally have someplace private where I can spend hours memorizing you.”

Liam feels blood rush to two different places in his body and wonders why his hands aren’t numb. His cheeks are rosy and his dick is half hard.

“Alright,” he says, trying to be saucy but failing miserably. Zayn laughs gently at him, his eyes twinkling.

“God, you’re precious. C’mon, let’s go home and sleep for three days.”

“Sounds good to me. I don’t want to leave the bed for a week.”

There are still paparazzi around them, not to mention their three band mates and here they are leaving very not-so-subtle clues out there in the open for anyone to pick up. Liam remembers the clause in their contract and feels a cold stone drop into his stomach. They have to be careful.

They get to Zayn’s house without a problem and both of them walk straight upstairs and slip into Zayn’s bed, too tired to do more than think about fooling around. Liam curls himself around Zayn and falls asleep to the bird tattoo on his back and the scent of his skin.

Liam wakes once in the middle of the night to a dog barking somewhere in the neighborhood and then again, hours later and much more pleasurably. He blinks awake all at once, his dick encased in a tight, wet, vice.

A moan bursts out of him without filter and he opens his eyes to see a large white sheet ballooning up over his dick. His pleasure mixes with affection, “Why are you under the covers? Want to see you sucking my dick.”

He flips the covers back and his eyes almost explode at the visual stimulation. Zayn, who had just been teasing his head at this point, pops off completely, “I got cold.”

“Then let me warm you up,” Liam says, pulling Zayn up to lie chest to chest with him. He brings Zayn’s face to his with a hand on the back of his head and their mouths meet. Liam’s breath tastes stale, but Zayn’s tastes a bit like pre-come and Liam, for the first time in his life, doesn’t feel like breaking the kiss to go brush his teeth. Zayn doesn’t care about his morning breath, and wouldn’t be shy about telling him it’s gross. Liam relaxes into the sleepy, slow kiss.

Yes, he could do this all day, but Zayn started a situation that needs to be resolved.

“You going to finish the job, or am I going to have to go awkwardly waddle to your shower and finish myself off thinking about you?” He says, watching the dilated pupils of those beautiful hazel eyes grow even bigger.

Zayn slips down Liam’s body to tease his happy trail with the bottom of his chin, “I dunno, mate. If you’re going to be cheeky, it might just be the shower for you.”

Liam swipes at Zayn’s arse, trying to hit it, but falls a bit short and just laughs instead. “Please, Zayn?” He asks, trying to make his eyes big and pleading.

Zayn’s breath shortens, “Damn, Liam, that’s not fair.”

“What’s not fair?”

“The fucking puppy dog eyes, you know I can’t resist those.”

Liam smiles and kisses the top of Zayn’s head, still resting on his stomach. “I didn’t know, actually, but I’ll have to remember that. My name is Liam, my band is One Direction, and Zayn Malik can’t resist my puppy dog eyes.”

Zayn bites his inner thigh and Liam groans. “Please, Zayn? Please finish it, I need to come so bad.”

“What will you give me,” he purrs, licking the head of Liam’s cock with a short touch of his pink tongue.

“Whatever you want,” Liam says, arching his hips up a bit, hoping Zayn will get the hint and start sucking him.

“That’s dangerous, Leeyum. Whatever I want?”

“Anything,” Liam starts to pant a bit, the strain of being this turned on with no relief hitting him hard.

“I’ll have to remember that.” He smirks up at Liam, “My name is Zayn Malik, my band is One Direction, and Liam Payne will do anything if I suck his dick. Sounds good to me.”

Liam huffs out a laugh, and that’s new to him. He’s never laughed in bed with someone before, it’s always been intense eye contact and pounding bodies together. He’s never paused to find humor in the situation. So many things are different with Zayn.

“For now,” Zayn says, unaware of Liam’s revelation, “I’ll settle for you making breakfast.”

“I can agree to that,” Liam smiles down at Zayn rubbing his stubble against Liam’s inner thighs, “You make me come, and I’ll make you breakfast. Sounds kind of unfair though, don’t you want to come?”

“I thought that was implied,” Zayn says and takes Liam down to the hilt. He closes his eyes and Liam almost has to close his own, but the rapture on Zayn’s face entices him. He can’t take his eyes away from his own cock jutting out of Zayn’s throat and the pure ecstasy on Zayn’s face like he was born to suck Liam’s dick and he’s finally fulfilling his purpose. Zayn starts to move back, then swallows him down again and Liam can’t breathe. If he breathes this will be over and it feels way too good to stop now. Liam watches Zayn with intensity, moving a hand behind his head to rest on his neck, just like he likes it.

Then, Zayn opens his eyes and Liam can read the undiluted lust and affection in them and he comes without warning.

Zayn wipes his mouth while Liam recovers and then Liam switches their positions so that Zayn is on his back. He doesn’t have it in him to tease like Zayn can so he jumps straight into it, his mouth watering to taste Zayn again and after just a few bobs, Zayn spurts into the back of his throat.

They lie still for a minute, both breathing hard.

“Breakfast burritos?” Liam asks.

“I’ve got chicken sausage and eggs.”

Breakfast never tasted better.

.

..

…

..

.

They spend the rest of the day lounging on Zayn’s couch playing Fifa and lounging on Zayn’s bed watching telly until it’s time for the next meal. By dinner, it’s clear that they are out of the emergency food Zayn’s mum leaves at his house for when he comes back and they’ll have to either order in or go to the grocery store.

Zayn opts to go to the grocery store and Liam stays at the house so as not to invoke more eyes peering into their private lives. He showers while Zayn’s gone and looks through his twitter feed. He texts the lads just to say hi, it really is always strange to go from seeing them every second of the day, sometimes even in the bathroom, to not seeing them at all.

Niall and Harry say hi back and Louis tells him lovingly to “piss off” which is basically the same thing.

Zayn comes back with bags upon bags of groceries and greets him with a kiss to the cheek, which Liam isn’t expecting and turns to take it on the mouth. They both tense a bit, unsure if they just crossed a line on the friends with benefits thing they have going on, but Zayn starts talking and they power roll through it.

Zayn makes spicy chicken and Liam wants to kiss him again, because spicy chicken is his absolute favorite. Liam helps put away the rest of the groceries while Zayn starts dinner and he doesn’t have to ask even once where things go. Half of the bags are undoubtedly for ice cream sundaes, all Zayn and Liam’s favorite things, and Liam just raises an eyebrow at Zayn when he holds up the pink sprinkles. Zayn shrugs and keeps right on cooking. When he’s done with the groceries, he sits at the breakfast bar and watches Zayn’s hands while he prepares dinner.

Chris Brown is playing in the iHome and cuts off when Zayn’s phone starts to ring. Liam sees on the screen that it’s Perrie and a knot forms in his stomach.

Zayn grabs it on the second ring, using his knuckle to unlock it because his fingers have chicken juice on them. He puts the phone against his ear with his shoulder and carries on cooking. “Hey babe, how’s tour going?”

Oh right, Liam thinks, Little Mix is on tour right now – that’s why he hasn’t seen or heard a peep from Perrie. And just as Liam starts to think too much on what’s they’re doing and why – Zayn’s talking to him again.

“Sorry about that,” he says, putting the phone back on the iHome to blare Justin Timberlake.

Liam puts his arms on the breakfast bar and then rests his chin on top of his arms. “It’s fine. So she’s on tour?”

“For the next month,” Zayn says and that’s all they say about Perrie.

They watch The Dark Knight Rises for the tenth time after dinner and argue through the entire thing. Liam insists it’s the greatest movie ever, but Zayn thinks it’s the weakest of the Batman movies and it’s an argument they have all the time yet neither will move from their position.

Halfway through, Zayn puts his head in Liam’s lap and keeps right on arguing about the smallest details.

“What do you think, should we watch another?” Liam asks when the credits roll.

Zayn sits up, “Let’s eat those sundaes first. I’ve got a horrible craving for sugar like whoa.”

“Do you?” Liam pulls himself up off the couch, “I didn’t notice that you bought the Tesco’s out of sprinkles, mate.”

Zayn pushes him back on the couch. “I don’t have to share with you.”

“But you’ll feel awful if you don’t,” Liam gets off the couch for the second time and slaps Zayn’s arse on their way to the kitchen.

Zayn heaps chocolate sauce and sprinkles on his sundae and Liam is reminded of the time they ate twisters together and then tweeted about it like idiots. He smiles into his sundae and puts Katy Perry in the iHome and starts shaking his hips to “Teenage Dream.” Zayn joins in a few bars later and they hold their ice cream bowls above their heads and sing along.

Liam is glad Zayn doesn’t have nosy neighbors. When the next track starts, Liam loses control of his bowl. Holding it with his left hand while trying to grab his foot with his right hand turned out to be a bad idea, and some of the melted ice cream sloshes onto the top of Zayn’s head.

“Hey!” He looks like a cat that took a dip in a lake, his hands coming up to furiously rub his hair down and just making it worse.

Liam can’t help himself. He laughs.

“Oh, you think it’s funny do you?” Zayn asks, a pout still etched onto his face but his eyes starting to take on that mischievous gleam.

Liam knows that look, that look means revenge. He tries to get a handle on himself, but he can’t. He’s still smiling when he says, “no, not funny at all. I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t believe you,” Zayn says and pours his ice cream bowl on Liam’s head.

Liam just laughs harder, wiping the cream out of his eyes so he can see the broad smile on Zayn’s face. His eyes are crinkled and he’s laughing so hard he isn’t making any sound.

“You think this makes us even,” Liam says, trying to sound stern and mad.

“I think this makes us idiots,” Zayn says back, seeing the look in Liam’s eyes and backing up slowly like he’s trying not to spook him.

Liam takes a few hesitant steps forward, stalking his prey. Zayn is going to get it for this. Zayn brings his hands up, like a trainer approaching a dangerous animal and wanting them to see they are harmless and not worth disemboweling.

Leaping at him, Liam takes Zayn off guard and mid-turn and wraps his arms around his broad shoulders, bringing his sticky face up to the back of his neck and whispering in his ear, “I think you need to clean me up.”

Zayn turns his head back a little and grinds his hips backwards into Liam’s half hard dick. His dick is always half hard around Zayn these days. “Like in the shower?”

Liam shakes his head so that Zayn can feel his answer and latches onto his neck, nibbling on the soft skin behind his ear, “Like with your tongue.” He rubs his nose up and down Zayn’s jugular and feels him shiver underneath his touch, “I think it’s dripped down into my pants.”

Zayn’s hips work themselves backwards even harder and Liam has to grab onto the counter so as not to fall backwards. He creeps a hand up Zayn’s Henley until he reaches where he knows the black heart tattoo is, then he slowly starts rubbing the skin, edging into the waist band of his trousers.

“As a…” Zayn breathes heavily, one of his hands coming up to the back of Liam’s head and pushing his head back onto his neck, “as a good host, I should help you clean up.”

“That’s the spirit,” Liam says, biting his earlobe, “Bedroom?”

He feels Zayn nod again and bends down to pick him up bridal style. Liam ignores the annoyed look on Zayn’s face and focuses on the dilated pupils. “Shut up, you love that I can man handle you like this.”

“I never said that,” Zayn says, trying to be petulant, but Liam keeps getting distracted by the bulge in his trousers.

“You didn’t have to,” Liam looks pointedly at that bulge and leans in to kiss him again.

He doesn’t remember the trip upstairs to the master bedroom but suddenly there they are and Liam’s stripping Zayn of all his annoying clothes and throwing him onto the bed.

Zayn pulls him into a kiss and it’s different than before. This kiss is sweet and a touch naïve. Liam sinks into it, pulling back a moment later when he puts a name to the emotions the kiss brings out of him. He looks down at Zayn under him and God, he’s almost blown back by the look in his eyes. No one has ever looked at him like this in bed, he looks debauched, he looks needy, he looks like he might die if Liam doesn’t keep kissing him. Liam thinks that he might die if he doesn’t kiss Zayn too, so he jumps back into the kiss, pushing his hips into Zayn and groaning at the friction between their cocks.

The kiss turns a bit dirty, but Liam can’t forget that sweetness from before and it feels intimate, so so intimate, and he’s drowning in it. No one knows him like Zayn knows him and he’s shared so many things and so much of his life with Zayn that falling into this feels like a natural extension of their tight bond. Zayn’s body feels like a part of his own, he knows its needs and where it’s ticklish, and how it likes to be touched.

He presses a kiss onto the feathers on Zayn’s collarbone, avoiding the tattooed lips and looks up from beneath his lashes at Zayn.

“Get your trousers off,” Zayn whispers, his voice rough and heading straight to Liam’s dick.

Liam pushes himself onto his knees, straddling Zayn’s legs, to undo his trousers and pauses at the buttons. He doesn’t have to just shuck them off. Zayn isn’t the only party here who can tease. Liam looks down at Zayn and brushes his fingers along the top of his trousers, he watches as Zayn’s tongue comes out to lick those pink lips. Liam carefully undoes the button and then slips slowly down the zipper one tooth at a time.

Zayn raises himself onto his elbows, his eyes trained on Liam’s crotch. Liam reaches the bottom of the zipper and then lowers his trousers down a centimeter or two. “Do you want this?”

He watches Zayn’s mouth gape at him and doesn’t bother covering his smirk. “Do you? You have to say it.”

“I want to fuck you so badly.”

Liam pulls the trousers off completely and then gets rid of his briefs as well. “What’s stopping you, Zaynie?”

“I…” He tackles Liam and climbs atop him, “I guess nothing.”

Liam doesn’t feel as confident as he’s acting, he’s never had anything up his arse before and he’s nervous. But he can see that Zayn needs him to be sure, Zayn needs him to take the reins at least enough to allow Zayn to let go a bit.

“Do you… do you have, like, stuff?” Liam asks, trying not to let his voice waver.

Zayn reaches a hand over into the nightstand and rummages around. He makes a frustrated sound, the same one he makes when he’s been practicing a new riff and can’t quite make it work, before triumphantly pulling a half-used tube out of the nightstand drawer.

“Thought maybe I’d gotten rid of this,” he says, “glad I didn’t though.”

Liam smiles at him, fighting the nerves battling to stake their claim in his stomach.

“I’m going to take good care of you, Liam. Such good care,” Zayn whispers as he settles himself between Liam’s spread thighs, shedding the rest of his clothes as he does.

“I know,” Liam finds himself saying, “you always do.”

Zayn kisses him again and Liam forgets to think. He hears the lube being squeezed out of the tube and it doesn’t register in his half dazed mind until he feels Zayn’s fingers tentatively brushing his hole and, yeah, they’re going to do this.

“You sure?” Zayn asks, giving him a chance to back out, giving him a chance to say he was just kidding or something.

Liam bucks his hips up a bit, “Yeah. Yeah, I’m sure. Please, I need you, Zayn.”

Zayn nods seriously and then Liam feels one finger breach him and— it feels weird. He tries to relax, he tries to loosen himself enough that he isn’t hindering Zayn’s finger. It takes Zayn bending down to kiss him again to get Liam out of his own head enough to allow the finger to become pleasurable.

After a few surreal moments, Liam stops thinking entirely. One finger becomes two and Liam can feel Zayn’s assessing stare on his face in between wet kisses.

“More, Zayn. More.”

He obliges, pouring more lube with his other hand and adding his ring finger. Zayn stretches him with three fingers and Liam begs for more.

“I’m ready, I’m ready, promise. Please just fuck me. Fuck me. God, Zayn, I need you to fuck me so bad.”

“Shhh,” Zayn says against his lips, “I’m going to, but I gotta stretch you out first. Don’t want to hurt you.”

“You couldn’t ever hurt me,” Liam says as he feels Zayn pull his left leg up, bending at the knee, and wrap it around his narrow hips. The new angle causes his fingers to hit something inside Liam that makes white lights blaze behind his now closed eyelids.

“You like that?”

“Don’t stop,” Liam hears before he registers that it’s his voice begging Zayn. But the pleasure is too great and he doesn’t have it in him at the time to care about things like shame.

Liam hands out on the edge of the best orgasm of his life, until suddenly those fingers are disappearing from him.

“No, no nononono, don’t stop. You said you wouldn’t stop.”

Liam opens his eyes to see Zayn smiling, looking amused and heavily turned on at the same time. “I’m not stopping, I’m giving you more. You did want more, didn’t you?”

Liam thinks that sounds like an excellent idea. “Yeah, yeah more. Give me your cock. I want it so bad, Zayn.”

“It’s yours,” he says and Liam hears him un-wrap a condom and then he feels something huge and thick at his entrance. He feels the first inch and shudders, his eyes rolling up into his head.

“Yes, yes more,” he hears himself moan, feeling Zayn so so so slowly enter him completely. His entire existence hinges on where his body envelopes Zayn’s.

Zayn’s breath is a tattoo against his neck, “so tight,” he says in wonder, “so tight for me. Feels so amazing.”

“I want to live inside you, Liam,” he says as he bottoms out. Liam can feel all of Zayn inside him and although it hurts – a touch uncomfortable – the pleasure it’s drawing out quickly overtakes any lingering pain.

Their bodies move together effortlessly, Liam’s hips meet Zayn’s without an adjustment period, they just slot into the same rhythm like the tempo is inborn. Like they live on the same frequency. Like they fit together.

When Liam feels himself start to get closer to the edge, Zayn reaches a hand to stroke him before he can move his own. Liam explodes in Zayn’s hand and opens his eyes just in time to see Zayn come as well. He’s beyond beautiful.

Paintings are beautiful. The Grand Canyon in the United States is beautiful. The Caribbean Sea is beautiful. Lots of things and places can be beautiful. And then there’s Zayn’s face in pleasure. Liam needs to invent a new word, but the only word he can even fathom is “Zayn.”

He thinks it will have to suffice.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...And things go a bit sour.

Liam settles into living at Zayn’s for the next week, he doesn’t ask about Perrie and Zayn doesn’t volunteer any information. He knows Zayn’s talking to her when he answers the phone and then leaves the room. Zayn always comes back looking a touch guilty, but it goes away as soon as Liam touches him.

Liam’s always touching him. They can’t be in the same room without touching. Especially here in the safety of Zayn’s house where they don’t have to keep one ear open for someone approaching, and use half their brain to think up a plausible lie if someone sneaks up on them. Liam didn’t realize how mentally exhausting it was, having to hide this, to protect it from everybody that wasn’t them, even their friends.

And, Liam thinks, he’s not even sure why they’re hiding it from their friends, they didn’t talk about it or decide together to keep it on the down low, they just kind of fell into it. Liam finds that he enjoys having something that’s just for him.

After that first week of time off, the lads get down to work finishing their album. Management lines up “Liam’s Lullaby” to be their first single, and Liam has already heard it come on the radio and had to switch the channel, overcome by feeling that emotion come over him. The next time he hears it, he’s in the grocery store buying cheese and cereal for Zayn’s refrigerator and he hands the teller a hundred pound note and walks out the door with two things in his hands. That night Zayn rode him for what felt like hours and for the first time, Liam understood the term “making love.”

Otherwise, he loves the critical reception the song has gotten. A few of the more staunch supporters have tried to make it an anti-abortion anthem and he has management stop them. It’s not… that’s not what his song is about. He believes in abortion, he does, he believes in a woman’s right to choose.

With Sophia, he’s just mad that she lied to him. Still, after all these months, he’s mad that she led him to believe that they would have a happy family together and then gutted him.

So he doesn’t want his song to be used to attack something he believes in. Like if they ever tried to use one of the One Direction songs to support homophobia, well, that’d be pretty hypocritical since he and Zayn are doing whatever they’re doing and Harry and Louis are like actual soul mates or something.

Speaking of Harry and Louis, they’re whole dynamic has been messed up since Louis found Harry’s lyric journal.

There’s the memorable conversation with Niall where Louis didn’t even realize he might have feelings for Harry. After that, he’d treated Harry with over the top affection, or he wouldn’t talk to him at all. The confusion shines out of Harry’s eyes every time Louis changes his mind. Poor Harry never knows which Louis he would be dealing with next.

Louis texts Liam on their second day in the studio – one or two of them recording at a time and the others writing songs in another room, jamming some amazing tunes that Liam thinks would sound amazing on the album. Louis asks him to come over that night to hang out. Liam knows something’s up immediately, but rolls with it. If Louis needs to talk to someone or just hang out with someone to take his mind off whatever it is that’s bothering him, well, Liam can be that guy. He can be that friend. It’s probably healthy that he doesn’t spend 100% of his time with his fuck buddy/best mate/flatmate anyway.

“Let yourself in next time, Liam, that’s why I gave you a spare key. Didn’t want to have to pause me game and get the door,” Louis says when Liam shows up that night.

“Terribly sorry,” Liam says, not sorry at all, “But it wasn’t me you gave an extra key to, mate, that was Harry.”

Louis’ eyes look downward and whatever vestiges of a smile remained on his face wipe off. “That’s right. You’re totally right. Well, guess I’ll need to get the rest of the lads keys as well. Make a full ‘do about it. Equality and all that.”

Liam just shrugs. He’s not sure what he’s supposed to say, so he doesn’t say anything at all.

“Well, alright then,” Louis flicks his head towards the inside of his house, “come in, Payno. Let’s order some dinner.”

“Chinese?” Liam asks hopefully.

“We’ll see.”

They eat their Chinese in front of the telly because Liam isn’t considered a guest. The sesame chicken is beyond a dream and Liam tries to steal the menu out of Louis’ hands but he claims it’s his secret place and he can’t give it up. Liam throws an eggroll at him and then immediately regrets it, mourning the eggroll now rolling across Louis’ carpet.

They wrestle over the remote for a while, but Liam lets Louis watch whatever he wants to watch. It takes two hours of shit reality TV before Louis cracks.

“This is awful shit.” He flips from one station to another to another in quick succession, “Harry would love it.”

“Well Harry has awful taste.”

Louis pulls a painful face, and Liam recognizes that he said the wrong thing. So they were going there tonight, then. “Did you ever ask him if he wrote ‘Little Things,’ Lou?” Liam tries to sound casual and fails.

“No,” he says, sounding like he was tortured to admit it, “but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense to me that he did.”

“So you haven’t talked to him at all about…”

Louis re-arranges himself on the couch, putting a pillow on his lap and playing with the seams. “No, no, I haven’t. I mean, how do you even start that conversation?”

“’Harry did you write a love song about me because you love me?’ won’t work for you?” Liam says, watching Louis smile at the teasing.

“I just,” he begins slowly, “I’m not sure what I want the outcome of the conversation to be, you know? I haven’t worked out what I want from him. I mean, do I even like boys, Liam? Because I am beyond confused.”

“Have you just been looking around and saw a bloke and said to yourself, ‘yeah I’d snog him?’”

Louis blushes and Liam clamps down on the impulse to take a picture for proof. This isn’t the time. He turns the volume off on his phone and tries to take the picture anyway. The lads won’t believe him otherwise.

“I haven’t been thinking of it that way.”

“What way have you been thinking about it?”

Louis stares off at the wall, the telly settled on some infomercial and the volume still on full blast. Liam turns it down and looks at Louis, trying to think of what to say.

“Have you just been thinking about Harry?” He asks quietly.

Louis nods.

“Have you wanted to snog Harry?”

Louis nods again, looking torn, “That’s the problem, mate. I can’t be sure if the reason I don’t find any other men attractive is because I’m not gay or if it’s because I’m so into Harry that I can’t even look at them.”

“Well, what about women?” Liam asks, “Are there women you’d still snog?”

“I honestly haven’t even thought about it. I’ve been so hung up on figuring this out, I haven’t been looking at women.”

Liam sort of thinks that’s a sign, especially since he’s still dating a woman, but he doesn’t say so to Louis. This is a conclusion he has to come to himself.

“Look, Liam, can I ask you a huge favor?”

“Always. What do you need?”

“I’ve been thinking about Niall’s idea, and…” He trails off, unable to look at Liam while he asks.

“And you want me to kiss you so you can see if you’re gay or not?” Liam smirks, he can’t help it. It’s not every day one of your best mates asks if he can snog you to see if he likes blokes. Liam remembers snogging a different best mate and shivers. That’s completely different. Liam is now firmly aware that he’s a bit into dudes.

Louis nods, his head hanging low. “If it wouldn’t be too weird.”

Liam smiles, “It’ll be weird, Lou, but I’d do that for you.”

“You would? Even though you aren’t gay?”

Gay, bi, pan… Liam isn’t exactly sure what he is, but he knows it’s definitely not straight anymore, “Course it won’t bother me,” he effectively leaves out the part about sexuality and Louis doesn’t blink.

Louis tilts his head back and forth, and stretches his hands out in front of him, like he’s preparing for a game of footie or something. Seriously, Liam has seen him do this exact stretch before walking on the pitch.

“Really, Louis? It’s just a kiss. C’mon.”

“Give us a ‘mo. I’m a bit nervous, okay? I’ve never snogged a bloke before.”

“It’s not like it’s very different from snogging a girl,” Liam says before he can think it through.

“Hold on, does that mean you’ve been kissing boys?” he asks.

“It’s just two pairs of lips, Louis. Unless we’re going to start working our way around the bases, I don’t see how it will be that different,” He scrambles to cover.

Louis doesn’t look like he completely believes him, but he lets it go with a, “Your stubble might make it a bit different.”

“Oh, stop stalling. Get over here and snog me.”

They then struggle with the logistics. They’re sitting next to each other on the couch. Louis looks at Liam’s lap like he’s wondering if he’s supposed to straddle him or something. Liam nixes that idea. He doesn’t want to feel that much of Louis pressed up against him. It’s fundamentally wrong.

Liam acts before Louis can triple-guess himself and crosses the distance on the couch and puts his lips on Louis’. It’s a strange snog, Liam thinks. It’s quite nice because it’s Louis and he loves Louis, cares for him very deeply, but there’s zero sexual chemistry and Liam finds his mind drifting to Zayn and whether he’ll let him rim the taste of Louis out of his mouth.

And just then, with Louis’ hands on Liam’s face, the door bursts open.

Liam pushes Louis off, and looks over at the door. Standing there in shock are Harry and Zayn.

Liam only has eyes for Zayn – his face is carefully blank, scarily blank.

“Harry, Zayn,” he says, “there’s an explanation for this.”

“It looks to me like you were snogging,” Zayn says, his voice tight and purposefully as blank as his face.

“We were,” Louis says, “but for a good reason.”

“Were you going to save the fucking children, Louis?” Zayn asks, anger filtering into his voice. “Were you going to find the cure to cancer in Liam’s throat? Fucking save it.”

“Zayn—“ Liam says.

“Fuck you, Liam,” Zayn says and suddenly Liam is furious. No fucking way, just no fucking way does Zayn get to get mad at him for kissing someone else when _Zayn_ is the one with the significant other, when Zayn’s the one who’s made him the mistress of the situation. Zayn has his fucking fiancé or whatever they are this week and Liam has nobody and no ties and Zayn made it that way. He has no right to be angry to find Liam kissing somebody else. Especially without bothering to listen to the explanation.

“No, fuck you!” Liam screams back, “I don’t have a girlfriend or a boyfriend. I can fucking snog whoever I want, Zayn. So don’t you dare fucking judge me.”

Zayn shakes his head and turns around, he lifts his hands up in a mocking surrender gesture and walks back out the way he came in. Liam stares at the slammed door.

“Lou?” He hears Harry ask.

“Liam was helping me figure a few things out, Haz.” His voice is soft, like after the eruption of Zayn and Liam, he needs to be careful with Harry. Louis is always pretty careful with Harry.

“Like what?” Harry sniffs a bit.                                                                           

“Like if I can enjoy a kiss from a man.”

Liam finally turns back to the other two in the room, still fuming mad with Zayn. Harry has tears streaking down his cheeks and he looks heartbroken. Not in the way he does when he sees road kill or even how he looks when he reads a bad article about himself or the band, he literally looks like someone gripped his heart in both hands and then snapped it right down the middle.

There’s nothing that can cut through Liam’s rage like Harry feeling sad. He forgets his anger at Zayn, he forgets that they basically just came out to Harry and Louis, he just sees a very sad Harry Styles and he feels terrible. He helped put that expression on Harry’s face.

“Why didn’t you come to me? You know I would have helped you out.”

“Because,” Louis says, standing up off the couch, “because I know I would enjoy a kiss from you, Haz. And I—“ he cuts himself off, only to blurt out of nowhere, “Did you write ‘Little Things’ about me? Only, we found your lyric journal on tour and the song was written in your handwriting and then Niall and Liam said that it might be about me, but I didn’t believe them and then Niall said that I should try kissing a bloke just to see if I like it, but then I thought that was stupid and—“

“Yes,” Harry says, a bit breathless, “I wrote ‘Little Things’ and yes, it was about you.”

“Oh, okay,” Louis says and Liam loses patience.

“Look,” he says, and both Louis and Harry turn to look at him like they forgot he was even here. Figures. “Why don’t you two work this out like you should have years ago, and I’ll just go and erm, well I suppose I can’t go back to Zayn’s, so I’ll just ring Niall, shall I?”

He doesn’t wait for a response, just walks out the door.

.

..

…

..

.

Niall lets him in without a fuss, putting a beer in his hand as he crosses the threshold. Niall’s flat is neater than he thought it would be this go around. Maid service must have just been through. They love Niall because he leaves plates of cookies out for them. Like he’s always expecting Santa Claus or something.

“What’s this for?” He asks, looking at the beer in his hand.

Niall shrugs, “I figure if you’re coming to stay at mine tonight, something happened with Zayn and so you’ll probably need one of those.”

Why does no one ever realize how perceptive Niall can be? It’s kind of scary how plugged into the band he is without everyone knowing. He has one hand on the pulse of the boys and the other wrapped around a beer or a sandwich.

“Thanks, mate. You’re right. I do need this.” He swallows a good half the beer in one go and then belches. Classy, Payne, he thinks to himself.

Niall grabs a few pillows off his bed and throws them at the couch. He curls up on the couch and gestures for Liam to join him. “So, what happened?”

Liam rolls his eyes. Why is it that they all eventually make Niall their therapist? Probably because he’s so good at pretending he doesn’t know things. Like the second you tell him a secret, he just forgets about it until the next time you bring it up.

“Zayn and Harry walked in on me and Louis snogging, and now Zayn’s mad at me.”

“Because you and Zayn were fucking?” Niall asks with no hesitation.

Liam doesn’t question how he knows, just nods. “I just don’t get why he’s so mad,” Liam quickly chugs the second half of the beer and puts the bottle down at his feet, “I mean, we aren’t together. He has Perrie and they’re… whatever they are… so now he finds me snogging someone else and _I’m_ the bad guy?”

Niall lets Liam rant for a little bit. He understands that sometimes you just need to vent it all out. “Mate,” Niall says, “Why do you think he’s mad at you? Really?”

“I dunno, I mean he caught me kissing Louis, but he has to know that was a laugh. I mean, we all know how Louis feels about Harry.”

“Does Zayn know how you feel about Louis?”

Liam grimaces, “I don’t feel anything about Louis. Except friendship and sometimes exasperation. I was just helping a mate figure out if he’s gay or not.”

“Oh, so he took me idea then?” Niall asks excitedly.

“Yeah, he said he couldn’t get it out of his head.”

Niall pouts adorably. “Why didn’t he come to me? I thought we had agreed he’d kiss me?”

Liam shakes his head. Why is he surrounded by such ridiculous people? “Why is that such a popular question? Why is everyone dying to snog Louis?”

“I’m not dying to snog Louis. I mean, it was my idea, he could have come to me since he had _my_ idea stuck in his head is all I’m saying.”

“Whatever. ‘S not the point right now.”

Finishing the beer in his hand, Niall places his empty down on the floor next to Liam’s.

“So he walked in on you snogging Louis, who you profess to have no feelings for but friendship and he’s mad. Why? Have you told him that you have more than friendly feelings for him?”

“He knows I do,” Liam says, thinking of all the times they’ve hooked up in the last three weeks or so.

“How does he know, did you tell him?” Niall counters.

“We’ve been messing around, alright? He knows I feel that way for him.”

Niall sighs like the world is against him and he’s the only sane person. Liam concedes that he might be right sometimes, “Look, Liam, if you never told him you have feelings for him, why would he see you snogging Louis as any different from you snogging him? Maybe to him it looks like you’re trying to start the same thing up with someone else in the band. It looks to him like you’re sick of him and done with him. And on top of that, you’re fucking up the band.”

“What?” Liam asks incredulously. “How could I be done with him? How could he think I want to be done with him?”

Niall runs his hands through his blonde hair, mucking it up every way possible, “Mate, I’m going to let you in on another one of those secrets that we don’t talk about in this band, okay?”

“What secret?” Liam frowns, hearing it in his voice and knowing it must be written across his face. He hates secrets, “I thought I knew them all.”

“There’s more than one Harry-and-Louis in our band and there has been since the beginning.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

Niall sighs again. “Zayn’s been in love with you since the beginning, you idiot. We all know, but it’s not something we talked about because we could see that you didn’t feel the same way. That’s half the reason we think Zayn got with Perrie.”

“Zayn’s in love with me?”

“It’s never been confirmed, but he did watch over you that whole week you had the flu in Spain and he did paint a fucking mural on your wall for a kid you didn’t end up having. Pretty sure it’s safe to say he loves you.”

Liam’s world fades away in front of him, replaced by a mirror universe like from the comics, where things look close to the same, but are different down to the atoms that make them up.

“Fuck.” Zayn loves Liam and Liam… “Double fuck.” Liam loves him too.

Has he always loved Zayn like this? He tries to think back to the X-factor days when he felt like he didn’t fit into the group, that they were always bemoaning him when he wanted to do work and rehearse and it wasn’t until Zayn brought him out of his shell with talk of Batman and Superman and Marvel vs. DC that the other boys saw him for who he was and Liam learned to relax and enjoy the ride. Zayn did that.

He thinks to all he knows of relationships, of partnerships, and he thinks that Zayn has been his partner all along. It’s Zayn who he goes to when his world falls apart, and it’s Zayn he goes to when he has good news. He seeks out Zayn when he thinks of something funny, and it’s Zayn he looks for when thing aren’t going his way and he needs comfort.

He takes care of him too, he thinks. When tour ends and Zayn needs a call to remember that Liam is still there for him, that they can spend months in each other’s pockets but he needs a reminder that Liam is around after they get back. He can pull Zayn out of his moods, or at least knows how to deal with them the best.

The last thing they were missing from being in a full out relationship was the sex. That certainly fell into place. Several different times and in several different positions.

“Fuck,” he says a third time because, really, how stupid has he been? He’s in love with Zayn and they were in a secret relationship all along and he really was kidding himself when he thought they could just be mates helping each other out.

Mates helping each other out is reluctant hand jobs in the darkness of a hotel room when they get too desperate. Mates helping each other out is not 69ing on a bunk and being so turned on that they couldn’t stop when their other friends walked in. Mates helping each other out is not long nights of making love in Zayn’s bed at his house, taking the time to stretch each other and look longingly into each other’s eyes in the moonlight.

“Fuck.”

“Yeah, you said that. Several times, actually.” Niall says helpfully.

Liam swallows a lump of something, “What am I supposed to do now?”

Niall shrugs nonchalantly, “Go get your man, I guess. I dunno, mate, I’ve never been in a clandestine gay relationship before.” He claps Liam on the back, “You might just have to wing it.”

“Wing it,” he repeats, “Yeah, yeah I can do that.”

“In the morning, though,” Niall looks at his watch, “Definitely in the morning. Give him time to calm down and sort everything out.”

“Yeah,” Liam says lying down on the couch and putting his feet on Niall’s lap, “The morning sounds good.”

After Niall leaves for bed, it takes Liam hours to fall asleep on the lumpy couch.

.

..

…

..

.

Liam wakes to the obnoxious sound of his phone going off. He doesn’t have an alarm set, so he’s not sure who’s calling him. He looks down off the side of couch he’s sleeping on, Niall’s he remembers, to grab his phone. Harry’s calling.

“Harry?”

“Good morning, beautiful Liam! How are you, how’s it been? What’s happening?”

It’s too early in the morning for this. His phone says it’s 10:00. Fuck. Still too early.

“Did you get laid, Harry?” Liam asks, only to hear giggling in response. “Spare us the details, mate, but I’m happy for both of you.”

Louis wrestles the phone out of Harry’s hands and Liam hears his voice next, “Liam, we’re together. We wanted to let everybody know. Well, the lads at least.”

“That’s lovely Louis, I’m really very happy for you,” Liam says, and he is. He is truly, truly, happy for his two friends. They practically have signs above their heads declaring themselves soul mates just like those “I’m with stupid” t-shirts.

“We’re really calling to tell you we need an emergency band meeting,” Harry says, sounding a bit farther away, like they’ve put Liam on speaker phone. He hates being on fucking speaker phone.

“Okay, when and where?”

“Louis’ place,” Harry says.

“It’s our place now, love. You know that,” Louis says and Liam wants to vomit in his mouth a bit.

“Here’s the really important question,” Liam says, cutting them off that tangent before he’s witness to more details about them than he already is, having given Louis his first gay kiss, “What are you bringing me to eat?”

“Haven’t thought about that,” Louis admits, “Guess you’ll just have to show up to find out. My place. Dinner time. Say 7:00 or so.”

“Okay cool, I’ll be there. You going to let everyone else know?”

“Yeah,” Louis says, sounding distracted, “I’ll call them later, we’re gonna go another round first.”

Liam hangs up. He tries to go back to sleep, but every time he closes his eyes and he pictures Louis and Harry together at that exact moment and cringes. Screw them. He picks up the guitar Niall left in the living room and decides to write until Niall wakes up and they can go get breakfast.

It’s not until he’s playing around with some chords that the music really calls to him. He feels a song bursting out of him, demanding to be written. Liam complies – he writes the chord sequence on his iPhone app and he just knows that this is Zayn’s song. This is the song for what Zayn does to him. It’s sappy and intense and more loving than anything else Liam has ever done. The song reflects his joy and his heartbreak and even the confusion he feels on a daily basis. He’s not sure he’ll ever share it, but he likes the process of writing songs. He works through his emotions, his feelings, and translates them into beautiful music, into an explanation of how he feels.

Niall comes in some time later and sits on the couch next to him, his chin on one hand, and listens.

“You’re like unbelievably good at this, Liam,” he says.

Liam looks up from the guitar, watching his fingers hit the chords, “That’s because you’re an amazing teacher, Nialler.”

“Not the guitar. You’re only okay at the guitar,” he teases, “I meant writing. You really have a knack for writing songs.”

“I dunno about that. I just write about what I’m thinking, how I’m feeling.”

“I think that might be why you’re so good. It’s not contrived or anything. You’re not writing because you have a quota or anything, you just _feel_ things and then you sing about them.”

Liam smiles, uncertain what to say. He’s never been very good at taking compliments. Still isn’t and he has fans shouting them at him all the time. He hears a distant voice in his head, _“You’re so good, Liam,”_ and he shakes his head. He’ll have to deal with Zayn today.

Is there any point in telling Zayn that he fell in love with him? Discounting that Niall said Zayn is in love with him, Liam thinks that everything is against him. Zayn has a fiancée. Not even just a girlfriend, but a fucking fiancée that last Liam knew, was actively making wedding plans. Liam kind of destroyed that for Zayn, he just hopes Zayn won’t hate him.

“C’mon,” Niall says, interrupting his thoughts, “Let’s go get some food. Nothing here is edible and I wouldn’t trust you to cook it, anyway.”

“Okay. I can do food,” Liam says, pulling himself off the couch, still in just his boxers, “Food sounds good.”

They eat and Niall tries his hardest to keep Liam’s mind off things with Zayn. They go shopping with security until there are just too many girls around them, then they sign a few things and get into a car and ride back to Niall’s place.

Liam takes a few minutes to call his parents, updates them on everything in his life except the fact that he’s fallen in love with his best friend and probably ruined his future marriage with his wanton ways, like a fallen woman in those romance books his mum is always reading. Yeah, he thinks, best to leave that part out. Especially because everyone in his family loves Zayn just as much as they love him, sometimes more so and unapologetically. Liam can’t blame them.

The hours tick by slowly and Liam finds he’s both dreading and eager to see Zayn. He wants to explain, he wants to tell him he was just doing Louis a favor and he didn’t mean it at all. He wants to pound it into Zayn’s head, heart, and body that there’s only one person in this world for him, and it’s Zayn Malik. He wants to look into those gorgeous eyes and see them look back at him with love and gentleness, like they look when they spent an entire week in bed. He wants to go back to then.

But going back to that wipes Liam’s revelation. Going back to then brings back a Liam that doesn’t know he loves Zayn and Liam isn’t sure he could ever go back to that, to not loving Zayn. They can only move forward from here.

Niall and Liam meet up at Louis (and Harry)’s place exactly at 7:00 because Liam doesn’t agree with being late, especially for no reason, especially when everyone they’re meeting knows they had nothing on before coming over here. Like, “Sorry I was late, my lifeguarding class ran late,” won’t cut it as an excuse.

Harry and Louis are just as disgusting at Liam always thought they would be when they finally got together. Harry’s sitting on Louis’ lap even though he’s easily three inches taller while they eat their food, all of them keeping an eye on the door for infamously late Zayn.

When they’ve finished all the food and Zayn still isn’t there, Liam starts to panic. Maybe Zayn got abducted by aliens on his way over. Maybe a sex ring looking for pretty boys kidnapped Zayn to be the star of their show. Maybe Perrie said she wasn’t feeling well and Zayn had to take her to the hospital. Maybe Zayn’s in the hospital!

“I think I should ring the hospital and make sure he’s not there,” Liam says, pulling up safari to look the number up on his phone.

“What?” Louis says, “Are you mad? Why don’t you just ring him first? Or text him? Damn, you’re a mess, Payno.”

Liam looks at his phone, then back up at LouisandHarry. “I can’t call him. He won’t answer.”

“Have you tried?” Niall calmly asks.

Liam shakes his head, “I don’t think he’ll answer.”

“Fine, you big baby,” Louis sighs, and rings Zayn. He doesn’t answer.

Liam clears his throat, “maybe he won’t answer your calls either.”

“Oh,” Louis says, “Yeah maybe that’s it. Niall? You weren’t even there, you try.”

“I’ve been texting him all day and he hasn’t answered,” Niall says. That sneaky little Irish bastard.

Niall looks over at him and must see his betrayal, “I was trying to be a mate to him too, Liam. He might have needed to talk.”

Liam deflates, “I’m glad you were trying to be there for him. So he didn’t answer at all? Are his read receipts still on?”

“He hasn’t even read them,” Niall says, “I think his phone might be off.”

“I don’t think it’s off,” Louis interjects, “it didn’t go straight to that stupid voicemail of his. I guess he’s just ignoring us.”

They sit in silence for a moment.

“Whelp,” Harry says, standing up and wiping his hands on his skinny jeans, “Who’s up for a lads trip to Zayn’s house?”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Liam tentatively asks, looking around to see what everyone else is thinking. Louis’ looking at Harry with heart eyes, but Niall looks contemplative before finally nodding.

“He missed the emergency band meeting,” Niall says, “So we need to take the meeting to him. Excellent idea, Curly. Let’s go. I’ll drive.”

“The fuck you will!” Harry says, now avoiding Louis’ tickling hands, “I’ll drive. My car’s big enough for the four of us.”

So Harry drives and Liam spends the ten minutes it takes them to get to Zayn’s familiar driveway biting his thumbnail.

The four of them get out of the car, Niall clinging to Liam, like he knows he needs the support, and walk up to the door to Zayn’s flat. Liam has a key, technically. But it’s not right to use it like this, so he doesn’t volunteer that information. Zayn gave him the key when he practically moved in, claiming it was just the spare and Liam might as well use it until he found a place of his own. It was another sign, Liam realizes, and he missed then that Zayn was reaching out to him. The key feels heavy in his pocket.

He isn’t listening while Harry and Niall try to wheedle Zayn out of his house They can see a light on in the living room through the curtain clad window, so they’re pretty certain he’s either at home, or contributing to the electricity bill that Zayn always blames on Liam for being so high.

“C’mon Zaynie,” Harry whines at the door, “We had an emergency band meeting and you missed it. At least let us in to talk about it with you. Then we’ll be gone. Promise.”

The door flies open, to everyone’s surprise. Liam feels Niall’s hand clench in his shirt. But it’s not Zayn at the door. It’s Perrie. And she looks _pissed off_.

“He doesn’t want to see you. Leave. Now.”

“But Pezza,” Louis starts, naturally falling into being the spokesperson for the band, “We need to discuss some band issues and as he’s still part of the band and these things concern him, he needs to talk to us too.”

“He doesn’t want to see you Louis,” she says softer this time, “he doesn’t want to see anyone for the next few days.”

“Is he okay?” Liam surprises himself by asking. “I mean, is there anything we can do?”

Whatever flicker of sympathy Perrie exhibited toward Louis melts off her pretty face. “No, Liam. You’ve already done enough, I should think. He doesn’t want to see any of you.”

Liam can feel the tension break, and slide down like a pudding cup thrown at the wall. It’s broken, he thinks, the band is broken and in pieces and it’s all Liam’s fault.

“Look,” Perrie begins again, seeing the dejected looks on their faces, “give him a few days to mope or whatever, okay? Then have Harry try to talk to him. Definitely not Louis right now, and absolutely not Liam either. He’s not ready to listen to anything anyone has to say. He’s just been—” She cuts herself off, like she realizes she was about to give something away that would betray Zayn’s confidence.

Liam loves that she cares so deeply for him, but it breaks his heart. In his mind, Perrie was an obstacle, sure, she was someone Zayn saw occasionally and had PR moments with. Zayn promotes Little Mix and Perrie staves off the gossip mill about who he’s dating, and more importantly, his sexuality. It wasn’t, it wasn’t _real_ in Liam’s mind. He wasn’t really breaking anything, because although Perrie is labeled “fiancée” in Zayn’s life, it wasn’t real. And now, Zayn’s obviously told her what was going on, and… Liam is a home wrecker.

He never thought he’d be a home wrecker, but there it is and here he is. Wrecking homes. Wrecking marriages. He can’t believe himself. He wants to slap himself and fall off a bridge or something. He knew that Zayn was engaged and just conveniently forgot because he wanted to get his dick sucked by his best mate, by the most important person in his life. God, he’s an awful friend, an awful human being.

Liam loves Zayn. He does. He loves him enough to want what’s best for him. He loves him enough to step out of the way so Zayn can go be with who Zayn wants to be with. And that’s Perrie.

They’re still talking. The four bereft members of One Direction still standing on Zayn’s ironic welcome mat are still quietly discussing something with Perrie, Zayn’s champion. Perrie, the only one on Zayn’s side, defending him and looking after him, exactly what Liam wants to do.

“I’m leaving,” he announces, and turns on his heel. He hears the surprised gasps from his mates, but they politely say good bye to Perrie and follow him back to Harry’s car. Liam slides into the back seat and leans his forehead against the glass of the window. He feels Niall slide in next to him, but he doesn’t say anything on their way back to HarryandLouis’. He lets himself mope for those twelve minutes back, because as soon as they get back to the meeting, he has to pull himself together.

They need a plan for Harry and Louis. Harry and Louis, who deserve happiness and won’t be able to have it openly and freely while they still have this contract hanging over their heads and another year or two until it’s up. As much as Liam wants to quit life and go mope on Niall’s couch, or better, mope in his mum’s house, they have something to deal with first.

Liam heats up some leftovers and eats them mechanically. Niall makes himself comfortable in between Harry and Louis on the couch, and Liam looks on from another arm chair. “We need a plan,” he says, getting straight to the point.

“We do,” Harry agrees, “I want to be with Louis publically.” He looks at Louis who nods in agreement while looking at Harry likes he personally makes sure the sun rises each morning, “We’ve discussed it and it was bad enough when we just had feelings for each other and management made us sit apart from each other and lie about being straight or whatever.”

“Yeah,” Louis takes over, “Now that we’ve been together and we know we’re in love? I doubt I can keep my hands to myself for very long. And I don’t want to get sued for breach of contract or whatever. We need to know, though,” he looks to Niall and Liam with very serious eyes. Liam feels the severity of their situation sink in like it always does when Louis allows them to see him being serious about something, “Are you behind us? This decision for us effects the band, our careers, your careers, everything. So we don’t want to do anything without discussing it with you lads first, which is why we needed Zayn here too.”

“Zayn won’t begrudge you two your happiness any more than the rest of us would, mate,” Liam says, confident that he can speak for Zayn on this matter regardless of whether or not Zayn would want him to speak for him at this point. Still, the sentiment is the same whoever is saying it, because Zayn won’t want them to be miserable when they can be together and in love. “And neither would we. Right Nialler?”

“Exactly,” Niall says, “And I think I may have a plan.”

“How the hell are we going to get ourselves out of this contract, Niall?”

Niall smirks and it looks so wrong on his face. Niall isn’t a devious bastard very often, that title goes to Louis, but damn does he have the perfect smirk for it. “We don’t, gentlemen. _We_ don’t.”

The plan Niall has, as it turns out, involves leaking a copy of their contract online to one of those blogs on the bottom of the internet obsessed with their gay love for each other and management’s oppression, and have them track down a loophole for the boys. It’s brilliant, Liam decides, because their fans have a wider range of resources that they can access and they care enough to track down answers in the name of One Direction. Also, because as Niall put it, “We don’t know shite about matters of the law, do we?”

“How long do we wait, Niall? How will we know when someone has found something?”

“I keep track of all those blogs already,” Niall explains, “with my secret laptop and my blogs that I didn’t tell management about and on the laptop that I bought with cash so they couldn’t trace my purchases.”

“Wow,” is all Harry can say for a moment, “that’s really paranoid, Niall. But it’s brilliant.”

“But seriously though, how long do we give them? It doesn’t seem like Louis and Harry will be able to fake not being together for very long,” Liam says, looking pointedly at Harry and Louis holding hands over Niall’s head.

“That’s the down side,” he answers, “it’ll have to take as long as it takes. Any encouragement we give to it will just look more suspicious to not only management, but the fandom too. There are already staunch supporters of Eleanor who won’t believe Louis is with Harry until they see them snogging on live television, and maybe not even then.”

“Oh shit,” Louis suddenly says, sitting straight up, “I have to break up with Eleanor.”

“You haven’t broken up with Eleanor?” Harry says, retracting his hand from Louis’.

“I’m so in love with you I forgot?” Louis tries. Harry frowns and gets up, walking into the kitchen and away from Louis.

Louis quickly says, “Look, this sounds like the best plan we’ve got, right? Go ahead and do it, Niall, and keep us updated on any results. Meanwhile, you might want to let yourselves out when you get a chance. This might get ugly. Eleanor’s a sore spot for Harry.” Then he jumps off the couch and follows Harry into the kitchen.

“Wonder why?” Liam mumbles beneath his breath.

Niall drags him out of the armchair and back to Niall’s flat where they play Fifa for a few hours until it’s socially acceptable to go back to sleep on the couch. Liam’s getting tired of sleeping on couches.

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The next day finds Liam and Louis back at the recording studio. They only have a bit of time left to finish recording the album, since it’s supposed to drop in a week or two in time for Christmas sales. Niall, Harry, and Zayn are scheduled for an interview with Nick Grimshaw on BBC radio this morning, a fact that has Louis mumbling about thieving boyfriend stealers under his breath, and has Liam worrying about whether or not Zayn will show up based on his behavior the night before. He doesn’t want Zayn to get in trouble.

Liam and Louis have a few more tracks to add their background vocals on, pretty mindless work, actually. Louis has a verse in one of the Niall and Harry written songs that he has to re-record because he and Harry thought of a better way to sing it while they were in the shower last night after their make-up sex or something last night and Liam kind of blocks that out when Louis explains because he really, really, does not want to know.

Louis is in the booth and Liam gets a little bored so he picks up one of the miscellaneous guitars thrown about the room and starts playing Zayn’s song on it – the riff turning unbearably sad and Liam fights the dragon of loneliness feeding off his heart. But dragons have teeth and fire and so it wins.

He doesn’t hear Louis come out of the booth, in fact he forgets about his existence, until he finishes the song and looks up to see not only Louis, but two technicians just looking at him in awe. Louis starts to clap and Liam starts to blush.

“What the hell was that, Liam?” Louis asks incredulously, “and why haven’t we recorded it?”

The blush intensifies, “Because it’s missing two verses, in case you didn’t notice?”

Louis’ face lights up, “then let’s add more words and record it.” He looks over to the technicians, “That okay with you guys?”

They nod, the one with straw blond hair speaks up, “You’re booked for the whole day, and no matter when you leave we have to stay here, so you might as well.”

“There you have it,” Louis whispers to Liam, “I’m going to help you come up with the most kick arse lyrics.”

“Can we,” Liam begins, now understanding why Harry didn’t want the world or even the lads to know why he wrote “Little Things” – “Can we say that you wrote this one? For Harry? I just don’t want Zayn to know. I mean, he has Perrie, you know? I can’t come between that any more than I already have.”

Louis’ face melts into a soft expression, one not often found directed at anyone other than Harry or his little sisters. “Sure Li, we can do that. It’ll even be half true. Because no way am I thinking about your love for Zayn when I write lyrics. There’s only one inspiration for me and it comes with a head of curls, mate.”

“Fair enough,” Liam says back and tries to smile.

Louis comes up with lyrics like he read them off a Dove chocolate wrapper, they’re sweet and meaningful and so accessible. Liam’s emotions are so locked up about Zayn that he has trouble getting words out, only the sad, loving music comes easily, so he bows to Louis’ beautiful words and they record the song, leaving spaces for backing vocals and certain verses sung in the style of who would sing them, all Louis’ impressions of each band member. Louis takes a demo to show Harry and the rest of the lads, since he apparently wrote it himself. Liam prepares to act surprised when Louis shows them all the song. He doesn’t think he’ll fool anyone. Well, not Niall anyway.

The technician cries when they finish the song and asks for a copy to let his daughter listen to. Liam doubts the song will make it on the CD. He signs the demo CD with a big smiley face.

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Three days after _that_ day, another night spent on Niall’s couch and another knot in his back, Liam reads the news on Sugarscape. Zayn and Perrie broke up.

Liam is so sick about it, he doesn’t get off the couch for hours. Home wrecker, he thinks when he looks in the mirror in Niall’s bathroom before taking a shower that day. Home wrecker, he thinks when he makes toast and can see his stupid, home wrecking face in the reflective surface of the toaster. Home wrecker, he thinks when he catches a glimpse of the fading love bite on his upper thigh that taunts him with not disappearing, like he needs to hold on to the proof that it was real, that it actually happened.

Liam ruined everything for Zayn. He messed up his dynamics with the band, he ruined the best friendship he’s ever had, and now he’s mucked up Zayn’s future marriage. Obviously Perrie couldn’t get over Zayn sleeping with Liam and threw him over. And now Zayn’s unhappy and sad and lonely and still so far away from Liam.

Looking around Niall’s flat, Liam thinks he needs to get out. They went out the night before, but Liam couldn’t even bring himself to get drunk. He threw himself onto the scene at Funky Buddha, but it just wasn’t the same.

He walks around London in a hat, sunglasses, a huge jacket that he discovers later is Zayn’s, and trousers that belong to Niall. He drinks coffee at Costa and breaks for a sandwich at Pret and finds that no one recognizes him. He congratulates himself on a well done disguise before he catches sight of himself in a window and realizes it’s not the disguise that’s keeping everyone away, it’s the scowl on his face and the absolute lack of happiness that makes him unrecognizable.

Liam embraces it. It’s rare that he gets to roam around London with no body guard, so he takes advantage of the anonymity that eludes him so regularly and just walks around thinking. Management is putting the final touches on the CD. The lads recorded thirty-four songs for the album that they approved, and now management gets to whittle that number down to twenty-four for the deluxe album. Liam is honestly fine with whatever they decide to keep. He knows that every single song the band approved is one that one of them wrote.

Zayn’s cover design will be mass produced for the physical copies of the CD they sell and Liam has the original drawing in his bag of stuff that’s still at Zayn’s. Liam plans to fight tooth and nail for that original, too. If Zayn wants it back, he’ll have to kill Liam for it, because it’s his favorite piece of art ever, tied evenly with the koalas from so long ago. Zayn drew the lads in his signature cartoon style, but they are so alive and so infused with the personality of each boy that they look more real that the photo shoots where make-up artists slather them in animal tested make-up and spray entire aerosol cans of hairspray into their hair to get their quiffs just so. Okay, so that may be an exaggeration, Liam admits, but still, those pictures of them like that are still pictures of them playing dress up. Zayn captures more of the real them in cartoons. Liam’s as in love with the album cover as he is with Zayn. It’s a problem, really.

They have a few more interviews to do before the album drops. Most of them are in pairs or threes, but there is one coming up that will feature all five of them. It’ll be the first time Liam and Zayn have been in a room together since Liam kissed Louis. Liam’s dreading it.

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The interview at Star96 starts off well. The lads keep Zayn and Liam in separates parts of the large meeting room they’re waiting in, and then Liam leads them into the studio where they squeeze onto one couch.

Their interviewer, John, banters a bit with Louis and Niall about Louis’ new siblings, who Liam has to agree are possibly the cutest human beings on the planet. And then he reaches the part of the interview that Liam knew was inevitable, but really hoped he might overlook.

“Now, Zayn, I hate to ask, but I have thousands of girls writing the same question over and over again on twitter – so, is it true you and Perrie Edwards are no longer together?”

Liam’s stomach sinks. He tries not to move, tries not to shift uncomfortably in his seat, tries not to show any emotion on his face. He hears Zayn’s melodic voice from the other side of the couch and he _misses_ him, desperately. That voice, singing, speaking, whispering, humming, fucking anything, Liam always wants to hear it.

“Yeah, it’s just, like, being on the road is tough, you know? We say that over and over, every artist who’s ever been on tour says it, and it’s because it’s true, yeah?” He says, like he’s put a lot of thought into what he’s going to say on his question. Because he had to know it would come up. Liam’s just glad Zayn can leave his part out of the equation, just happy that Liam ruining the relationship can stay out of the public. Not that management would ever let that come out, even if they knew.

Louis and Niall say something, but Liam doesn’t hear them. He just hears when Zayn starts up again, “It really wears on you, and it wears on your relationships. Add on top of that the fact that she’s touring too, and it’s like impossible for us to spend enough time together to really make a proper go of it, yeah? It’s not fair to her and it’s not fair to me to try to make a marriage work when we like barely see each other. So, yeah, we’re uh not together anymore.”

“Do you think you’ll ever get back together?” The interviewer asks, not hiding the greedy gleam in his eye very well.

“Yeah Zaynie,” Louis says, teasing Liam as much as he is Zayn, “The world needs to know if that they can try to woo the Bradford Bad Boi.”

“No,” Zayn’s clears his throat, like he does when he’s uncomfortable, “No, we’ll never be together again. But I love her and I wish the best for her.”

Of course, because Liam ruined the relationship for him. They were on tour and Perrie was away. Zayn got a bit horny and Liam was just there. It wasn’t anything more than mates helping out mates to Zayn. And now he’s lost the love of his life.

Zayn makes Liam feel even worse when he keeps going, “Just, no one should hate her, or anything. Our fans really are the best in the world and it would break my heart if they said mean things to her or like, sent her hate mail or anything.”

Finally, _finally_ , the conversation steers away from Zayn and Perrie and toward the album, where the attention should be. Liam feels a small flicker of pride when Harry praises him for writing “Liam’s Lullaby” on his own. He did that. He has an achievement that he worked for by himself.

Moreover, Liam’s fucking proud of this album, okay? They did it. _Them_. By themselves. And his conversation with John from Star96 shows that, and Liam’s happy it does. Old John’s turned around in Liam’s opinion. He asks questions about the writing process, about them as musicians rather than them as boy banders that no one takes seriously musically. It’s refreshing to Liam.

He just hopes he gets the message across clearly, “We had an almost entire different album ready to go out and just, boom, we had a burst of creative energy and suddenly we had twenty of our own songs, proper songs, to choose from and we, you know, we thought they were good songs, songs we could be proud of, and we wanted to share ourselves with the world and not someone else’s words about how they feel about someone we’ve never met. All our songs are about us or something we’ve gone through and they’re just…”

“Relatable,” Zayn says, and Liam’s head turns violently towards that side of the couch. He can’t see him through Louis, Niall, and Harry, but he can still feel it, that tenable cord that has always linked them, that red string connecting their fingers like they learned about in Japan. It’s still there, vibrating with the tension in the room and Liam can finally breathe for the first time in days.

“Yeah,” Liam coughs, more the sudden lifting of the weight on his chest, than anything to actually choke on. He stumbles over himself, but recovers nicely, “they’re relatable and they’re true in a way that our other albums have struggled to be. These are organic and they sound organic.”

“They come from our hearts,” Harry says, sensing Liam’s struggle and taking over. And fuck, but that’s what they always do, isn’t it? One Direction have each other’s back and when one stumbles, the rest catch him in their different ways, “We’re really proud of the album and we hope our fans will like it.”

John still has that gleam sparkling in his eyes, like dare he ask for more of a scoop than he’s already gotten in this interview? “Can you tell me the name of it?” Apparently he does dare.

“Yeah,” Louis says, his hand struggling to find any inch of Harry that he can, his mouth crooked up into quintessential trouble-maker smirk, “it’s called ‘Little Did You Know.’”

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	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't pretend to know anything about British Law or Contract Law, so please suspend your disbelief if something is glaringly wrong. I'm sure I've taken a few liberties to make everything come together nicely.
> 
> Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed it!

And it’s quite fitting, Liam thinks later as he’s making his way back to Niall’s. Their album title encompasses so much of the last few months for everybody. Liam himself – impending fatherhood, more lies and deceit from a significant other, the break up, falling into song writing, discovering Zayn in every way that counts, losing Zayn… it’s been a rollercoaster of the last few months. But more than just him as an individual, look at Louis and Harry, who after so long discovered their love is mutual. Very, very, mutual. Then there’s Niall, who may have the least to discover about himself, but has discovered so many different things about each of the other members, and has allowed them to know his secrets as well. A secret blog? A secret twitter account so they could rig the asks? Liam couldn’t be more shocked if Niall dyed his hair blue and had two full sleeve tattoos.

So much of this album is personal now, so much of themselves are going to be out there – more than the rest of their albums combined. More than “Little Things” even. Their hearts, their souls, their very essences are going to be in this album for all and sundry to listen to and critique. For all time.

Liam is going to stay off the internet that day. Okay, maybe the full week.

Unless they find a way to get out of their contract. Then he’s going to be online all day answering fan questions legitimately and absurdly in depth. He’s going to be honest and upfront, and fuck, he’s going to do away with the farce that Modest! Management has made them put up for so long. Liam’s a little bit into boys. Liam tried ecstasy one time at Funky Buddah and decided he absolutely hated it and would never do it again. Liam is not in love with Sophia and they’re broken up, regardless of the tweets that management continues to send from his account and the very public love bites that Zayn left on his neck and other areas.

He’s sick of the lies and he wants to get it all out there before they inevitably sign up with another management team who might possibly restrict them as before. He’s not kidding himself, Liam is sensible and reasonable and he knows that a band as large as theirs who can sell out a fucking stadium tour needs a full time team of managers. They’re in the big leagues, he knows. They can’t just let it go, they need like back up plans and shit.

Before they can worry about that, though, Liam can only panic about their current situation. Niall has had a few bites on tumblr – people have downloaded the contract at least. Apparently there was a big stink on whether or not the contract is legitimate, because as Liam has come to learn painfully, not everything on the internet is true. One of the big arguments about its legitimacy is surprisingly the signatures. Liam would like to point out that he is twenty-one years old and he signed a contract when he was sixteen. He hopes his signature has changed a little bit, especially with how many times he’s had to use it over those fateful four and a half years.

They’re keeping an eye on it, though. Well, Niall is mostly, and Liam keeps badgering him for updates.

It comes to a head a few days later, when David, their main liaison between themselves and Modest! brings them into a meeting to discuss Harry and Louis. Again.

The five of them walk into the room in the downtown office like they’re walking to the gallows. Liam sees the subtle rising of Louis’ shoulders and knows he’s hiding how scared shitless he is from the rest of them. Harry isn’t even trying. His green eyes are huge and he keeps gnawing on his nails and sneaking looks at Louis that are definitely not flying under the radar. Harry needs to stop that. It’s why they’re here in the first place.

Liam no longer has a gauge on Zayn’s behavior. He never thought they would ever be actively avoiding each other so he’s flying blind even trying to pin point any behavior from him that screams _off_. Liam allows him his space, keeping as many bodies between them as possible. He looks good, though, skinny jeans and his leather jacket, his battle armor. He’s wearing the beanie that Liam loves, a soft grey that somehow brings out the green in his hazel eyes. Liam wants to rub his face against Zayn’s.

Of all of them, Niall acts the most naturally like himself. Liam wishes he could say it was down to natural acting talent, that Niall harbors some great proclivity for the stage or something, but he knows it’s really just a combination of compartmentalization and fearlessness. Liam wants to be Niall when he grows up. Or Batman.

“Have a seat,” David says as he leads them into his corner office, the floor to ceiling windows allowing the rare sunlight to reflect off his bald head.

They make fleeting eye contact between themselves, all but Zayn and sit down as if they were assigned seats. Liam finds himself on one end of the sofa with Louis, Niall, and Harry between himself and Zayn on the other end. It’s a direct replica of their positioning of their interview earlier that week.

“See, this is the problem,” David opens, pointing to their seating.

“What is?” Louis asks, the bravest of them all.

“Something’s off with you guys. Care to tell me what it is?”

Liam can feel Louis shrug and lean back in his seat, trying to project an air of nonchalance. Liam wonders if that ever worked for him in primary school. Liam suspects he has a lot of practice at this.

Niall coughs into his hand and then wipes it on Harry’s leg, “Nothing’s wrong with us, David. We’re perfectly fine. We’re just enjoying our little bit of time off before the album comes out.”

David does not look like he buys that. Liam sees his eyebrow flirt with where his hairline would be if he still had one. David walks around the desk and pours himself a scotch from the mahogany bar in the corner of the office. Liam would very much like a drink as well. He doesn’t ask.

“See, I’m not sure I believe that, Mr. Horan,” he puts the glass up to his lips and downs it all in one sip like he’s taking a shot. He places the tumbler down on the desk. Liam sees Harry’s hands clench. He can’t tell if it’s in anxiety about the meeting or because David didn’t use a coaster and now there’s going to be a ring on his fancy desk.

“What makes you think there’s something wrong with us?” Liam asks, trying to sound believable. He knows that their best strategy is letting Niall and Louis do the talking, but it gets even more suspicious when he and Harry, the notoriously worst liars of the group, don’t speak at all. He learned long ago to speak when he can get away with it, but to leave the important matters to the other lads.

“It’s funny you should say that, Liam,” David perches on the edge of his desk now, facing the couch on the opposite wall. “You’re part of the problem.”

Liam feels genuine confusion course through him. He expected to be here because of Harry and Louis, not him. What has he done that management would worry about? He catches sight of Zayn’s knobby knee in the corner of his eye. Oh yeah. “What do you mean?”

“The fans have noticed something’s going on with you and Zayn,” he says, looking between Liam and Zayn. Liam swallows the lump forming in his throat. How did they find out? They were so careful. Never once were they caught. Liam wouldn’t go near Zayn unless he was sure there weren’t any cameras around, or even any fans who could run back and spread rumors online. Everything happened behind closed doors for this very reason.

“Nothing’s going on with me and Zayn. What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about the fact that you’ve refused to sit next to each other in the last four appearances you’ve had together. The fans think you hate each other now.”

“I don’t hate Liam,” Zayn says, his voice croaking a bit in the way it does when he’s stressed and needs a cigarette badly.

Liam feels Louis’ knee nudge his, a casual reminder that he has support. David gets off the desk and walks closer to them, looking to Liam like a lion stalking its prey. But without a mane. “Very convincing Zayn,” he says sarcastically, “you can’t even say his name without choking on it.”

Liam looks down because David’s right. Zayn can’t even convincingly lie to management that he doesn’t hate him. That Liam didn’t ruin his life.

“Look,” David begins, throwing both hands in the air in a gesture of defeat, “I don’t really care, okay? Just fix it. If you can’t fix it, then fix it in front of the cameras, okay? God, that’s not even why we’re here.”

“It’s not?” Niall says, halfway out of his seat, thinking they were done. “Why are we really here then?”

“Well, Mr. Horan, while Zayn and Liam here are obviously on the outs, Mr. Tomlinson and Mr. Styles here are… obviously _getting it in_.”

If it was anyone else who said that, Liam knows that Louis would immediately high five them. As it is, he sneaks a glance at Louis and sees his face lose its color. Liam nudges his knees back, offering that same support.

“We’re not… that’s not how it…” Louis tries to get out, noticeably thrown.

“Louis and I are not together,” Harry recovers, sounding like he only rehearsed that a few hundred times. Liam hears a groan and realizes it came from himself.

David obviously does not give a fuck, “Look Mr. Styles, I actually don’t give a flying fuck, okay? What I’m concerned about is the clause in your contract stating that you will not enter into a relationship with anyone else in this band that we had to write into the contract specifically because of you and your sexuality.”

Harry’s jaw drops, he sputters a few times, “You wrote that because of me? You had no way of knowing if I was gay or bi or anything.”

“We had our suspicions.”

“You had no right to make any assumptions,” Louis says, obviously heated, “and there isn’t anything wrong with being gay anyway, you bigot.”

David sighs, putting his head in his hands and rubbing like he’s trying to relieve himself of a headache, “I wasn’t commenting on the philosophy or morality of being homosexual, Mr. Tomlinson. I’m merely saying that you and Mr. Styles are seriously in danger of violating your contract and if we find any evidence to support that idea then we will be pursuing legal action.”

“Legal action?” Niall asks, “You’d sue us for two of us falling in love?”

“Like I said, Mr. Horan, I don’t care who you fuck as long as it’s discreet and out of the press. But any inter-band fraternization, yeah, that jeopardizes the band and thus Modest! Management’s interest in this band and its future earnings. In that regard, we’ll proceed any way we have to. Including expressing our right to compensation for breach of contract.”

“Fine,” Zayn gets to his feet, “We get it. If that’s all you wanted to say, we’ll be going now.” Zayn doesn’t wait for confirmation from David before charging toward the door, flinging it open and stomping out. Liam admires his fire, always has. Zayn’s a passionate person – it’s so vivid in his artwork and his music and when he decides to stand up for something. He also admires the view on Zayn’s way out.

Liam stands up as well, nods cordially at David and follows Zayn out of the door. He feels Niall, Harry, and Louis following him.

They carefully do not talk or say anything at all on their way out, though they do smile and chit chat with some of the familiar faces they see. It wouldn’t do to piss off anyone else here. With an unspoken agreement, they meet in Zayn’s driveway. He waits by his car like he expected them any second, a half-finished cigarette burning between his fingers. Silently, they march up the walk to Zayn’s front door and follow him inside one-by-one. It’s a dark day in the world of One Direction when they are silent.

“So that sucked,” Louis says as he flops onto Zayn’s couch. Liam looks at it fondly, he peers at the Doritos stain still sitting proudly on the left cushion. He put that there after an intense Fifa battle. Zayn made him go to the kitchen to get a napkin to clean it up, but they got distracted and ended up fucking on the kitchen counter. Liam doesn’t want to look at the couch anymore.

He doesn’t know where to sit, so he awkwardly stands, his arms across his chest and his hands under his armpits.

“That totaled sucked,” Harry says, sinking onto Louis lap and burying his head in his neck. “What are we going to do? They know. They totally know.”

“I dunno, but I refuse to give you up,” Louis says, petting Harry’s curls and trying to calm him down.

“They don’t know,” Liam bites out before he can stop himself, “if they knew they would have sued us already. This was a ‘we think we might be right, but if we do sue and we’re wrong then we look like idiots and we lose our biggest money maker’ meeting where they feel us out and see if we cave and admit to anything. We didn’t. We’re fine. You did great, Harry.”

“But what happens when we slip up one time?” Harry asks, pulling his face out of Louis’ neck just far enough to look at Liam, “What happens when we have to go to court and the media make me and Louis out to be sex craved perverts and won’t let their children listen to us anymore? What happens when this is it? What happens when we can’t make any more music or perform because of this?”

“That’s just not going to happen, Haz,” Liam says with conviction he doesn’t feel. They need him to be strong right now. One Direction pick each other up when one of them falls. That’s how it’s always been, and that’s how it will be now. “Firstly, we have loads of loyal fans who won’t let that happen. The not making more music and performing part. There are multiple tumblr blogs dedicated to our gay love for each other. We obviously have supporters. As for the media? Screw them and screw anyone who doesn’t know that 90% of that shit is made up. We don’t need them.”

He looks around the room and sees the hopeful looks on the lads’ faces, “Besides, we have detective Niall on the case. We’re working on getting out of this, we just need to last a bit longer, don’t we? There’s still hope, lads.”

“That’s right,” Niall says, “I have one girl who thinks she might be close. Apparently her dad is a lawyer in America and she’s bugging him to look at the contract. He promised he’d look at it,” Niall looks at his watch, doing some mental calculations with his tongue sticking out of his mouth. “Sometime today or tomorrow, actually. Soon, I think. I’ll check when I get home.”

“See?” Liam says to Harry, “No promises, but things might be turning around. We just have to be careful for a bit longer until we can get out of this contract and be honest about ourselves.”

“I don’t want to be too honest,” Louis says, “I mean, I don’t want people thinking it’s okay to ask me who tops or like what Harry’s dick looks like. That’s just for me, you know?”

Zayn makes a gagging noise, “I don’t want people asking you that either, mate. I just don’t want to think about it.”

“Oh shut it, you,” Louis says, “like you’re so disgusted with cock.”

The room freezes. Louis opens his mouth again and sputters a bit, “I’m sorry, mate. I didn’t mean…” he trails off, unable to find the words.

“Meeting over?” Zayn asks pointedly, avoiding Liam’s entire corner of the room. “Right. You lot know where the door is.”

“Shit,” Louis says and Liam has to agree. Harry glares at him, but refuses to let go of him and Louis picks him up koala style and walks out the door, Niall following behind and looking at Liam and then the door Zayn disappeared into like he was trying to communicate something without saying it. Liam purposefully didn’t interpret the look. He is not going to try to talk to Zayn in this mood. God, has Niall even met Zayn?

Besides, he came here with Niall, how would he get home? Better leave that for another day, Liam thinks. They’d just have to fake it in front of the cameras when they appeared together.

Liam gets into the car and ignores Niall’s concerned face. He looks at his phone for the date – shit, two days. They had an interview together and alone, just the two of them, in two days. Liam swallows down the bile that works its way up his esophagus. Two days and a painfully awkward interview. He could do that. He just has to take things one at a time.

First thing: get through this interview without causing any more suspicion.

.

..

...

..

.

The only good thing about the interview is that it’s with Grimmy and in a familiar enough environment that Liam is comfortable with everything except Zayn. Liam also hopes that because Harry is such good friends with Nick Grimshaw that he’ll have told him at least the basics of the fact that Liam and Zayn aren’t getting along really well at the moment and he’ll not make it worse. Liam doesn’t hope for a lot, just that things don’t get worse.

Liam showers at Niall’s and borrows more clothes. This is getting a bit ridiculous, he thinks as he tries on several different pairs of Niall’s trousers, trying to find some that fit. He has to get his clothes from Zayn’s at some point, especially since people are going to start noticing that he hasn’t worn any of his own clothes for over a week now.

He finds a pair of Louis’ jogging bottoms in the back of Niall’s closet and doesn’t wonder why they’re there, just takes it as a sign and tries to find a shirt that more or less matches. He steals a snap back from Niall and considers himself a firm “good enough,” and then walks out the door, Niall’s spare key hidden in his trouser pockets.

He dreads the interview all the way up until the point they are doing the interview. Zayn rolls in late, surprise surprise, and mics up the moment he walks in the door and joins the interview. Liam is grateful there wasn’t any awkward waiting before it began, but he didn’t consider how close Zayn would be sitting to him when it was just him and Grimmy making fun of Harry for the two minutes it took for Zayn to join them.

Liam smells him as he walks behind his chair and plops down in the empty seat, already apologizing to Grimmy and his staff for being late.

“That’s a’right, Zayn, we’re used to it,” he teases, his quiff huge and full of secrets. Liam idly wonders what Harry’s told him about Liam.

“Oh,” Liam says, speaking of Harry, “By the way, Zayn and I tried that restaurant you told Harry about a couple months ago, the one with the wicked hippie mood lighting?”

“Did you?” He asks, looking between Liam and Zayn. Liam has a feeling he’s implying more, but as usual with Grimmy, he can’t tell and he hates that. It makes him feel stupid.

“We did,” Zayn confirms, not looking at Liam, despite the fact that they are being recorded and this is going to be more of a visual interview than Grimmy’s radio interviews, “we took our significant others of the time and went without Harry.”

“He was devastated,” Liam puts in, trying for the usual camaraderie the fans are used to from him and Zayn.

“Poor Harry, always getting left out of all the fun stuff. Did you make it up to him later?”

“I have a feeling he’s forgotten about it completely,” Zayn says.

“Probably has by now,” Grimmy agrees and transitions them into more of a traditional interview and less of small talk one might make at a party around the guacamole dip. “Anyway, so you two are about to drop your fourth album. That’s a big deal. Are you excited about it?”

“We’re mad excited,” Liam says quickly, and it’s true. He’s in a constant state of elation and despair fighting it out inside him. “This album is going to be sick. I mean, we have songs that we’ve written on there, we have songs that feature one of us on lead, with back-up from the other boys, we have tracks about our lives, our true lives that fans don’t really get to see. I feel like we really dug deep for this album. It’s about more than silly summer love songs and shallow angst. It’s, um—“

“Deep angst?” Grimmy suggests.

Liam feels a laugh burst out of him to his surprise, he’s so wound up with anxiety, he’s honestly surprised that he could laugh at something genuinely. “Something like that, Grimmy. Something like that.”

“And what about you, Zayn?” Nick asks, “do you agree?”

“Yeah,” he says and starts going on about the album as well. Liam looks at him while he speaks and damn but that boy isn’t the most beautiful thing on the entire planet. His cheek bones alone would make Quasimotto attractive. His hair isn’t styled into the quiff today, and it isn’t under a beanie. It’s disheveled in Liam’s favorite style, looking like he just rolled out of bed, which he probably did. He’s wearing his glasses and Liam thinks they make him looks like an English professor or something. Like he might start speaking poetry in between drags on his cigarette. He’s earth shatteringly beautiful and Liam is so done for. But Zayn won’t look at him for more than a second, won’t comfortingly rub his leg against Liam’s, he won’t laugh at anything Liam says.

They have got to fix this, Liam thinks. David was right, and this is unacceptable. He refuses to live in a world where his Zayn won’t even look at him. He can’t go on like this and he knows it. Okay, so Zayn isn’t in love with him like he’s in love with Zayn. Liam has his big boy pants on, he can deal with that. Barely, but he can deal. He can’t deal with not having Zayn be his friend. He can’t deal with Zayn being there every time he turns around, but not be able to smile at him or tell him a joke, or even tell him something amusing that happened to him. He can’t do that any longer. They have to talk about this, Liam’s mind is made up.

“…and Liam’s really come into his own as a song-writer,” Zayn finishes whatever he was saying and Liam melts.

“Have you, Liam?” Grimmy asks, like he knew that Liam drifted out of the conversation.

“I rather think I did, Grims. I wrote ‘Liam’s Lullaby’ on my own and that’s kind of what kick-started us to write the entire album.”

“If I remember correctly,” Zayn says, finally looking at Liam, “Liam’s song made Louis challenge us all to write the entire album with no outside help.”

“And the second part of that challenge was that Zayn had to create the cover art. Which he did. That’s an exclusive, I think,” Liam lightly taps Zayn on the shoulder, unable to control his pride and keeps his hands off Zayn who clearly doesn’t want them on him.

“You made the cover art? What’s it look like? Tell us about that, Zayn.”

“Well,” Zayn says shyly, he’s really not good at talking about his own accomplishments, that’s why Liam has always felt the need to praise him in public, to make the world acknowledge how amazing Zayn is, how much talent he truly has: his voice, his art, his creativity. “Since this album contains so much of us in song, I thought the album art should reflect that. Instead of us peering out of a telephone booth or something, I wanted something that was _us_ , like, something we might find ourselves doing while bored on tour. And then I just drew everyone like how I see them, yeah?”

“It’s quite amazing,” Liam says, eager to tell the world how amazing Zayn’s art is, “easily my second favorite piece of art ever. And I’m a Rembrandt man, meself.”

“Only your second favorite?” Grimmy teases, fishing for more, “That must be high praise for your favorite piece then. Is it something by Rembrandt?”

Liam laughs, “No, no. Zayn’s created my two favorite pieces of art. Probably all my favorite art, actually. It wasn’t something I thought about until I met him. I wasn’t good at it, so I dismissed it. But, yeah, this drawing of us is my second favorite.”

“Well, come now, Liam. You can’t just tease us like that. What’s the other one he did for you and why’s it your favorite? Is it naughty?”

Liam sees Zayn’s blush and knows he painted himself into a corner on this one, “No, it’s not naughty or anything. It is a bit private, though. He painted my favorite animal for me once. It’s quite beautiful.”

“Is it hanging in your house?”

Liam sees Zayn in that soft light of his flat all those months ago, in just Louis’ trekkie bottoms, more paint on him than his tattoos, his tongue poking out of his mouth as he concentrated on creating something just for Liam and Liam’s new family.

He clears his throat, “Haven’t got a house at the ‘mo. But it’s seared into my memory. You don’t forget something like that. Truly beautiful. Zayn here’s got some real talent.”

“I’ll have to get him to paint something for me,” Grimmy says, “and it _will_ be naughty. I don’t care what anyone else says. You up for it, Zayn?”

“No promises, Grimmy. I have to like you to paint something for you.”

“You don’t like me?” Grimmy puts his hand over his heart, like Zayn mortally offended him, “I’m wounded.”

“It’ll come in time, Nick. Just be yourself,” Zayn teases back.

“Well, there you have it world. Liam Payne and Zayn Malik are teases and they also have an album coming out December 15th  and a concert in London in a few days to thank a few lucky, lucky fans. Don’t go anywhere, up next we’ll make some prank calls and Liam’s going to write a song about my hair. He said so off-air.”

“I did not!” Liam says, but he’s laughing out of relief.

“He did, I heard him,” Zayn says and Grimmy nods solemnly at him.

“So stick around because that’s something you can’t miss.”

“What rhymes with ‘full of secrets?’” Liam asks.

“Bullshit leaflets?” Zayn says, smiling so that his eyes crinkled.

Liam thinks there might be a chance, a small one, that they can go back to being friends. He has hope.

.

..

…

..

.

They get through the next hour of prank calls, which turn out to be hilarious. There’s a danger with prank calls that you’re going to get someone who A) doesn’t answer or B) hangs up as soon as it gets good. Luckily for them, they get Lou Teasdale who always knows somehow that it’s a prank call and goes with it anyway, and Zayn’s sister Doniya who is a real sport.

Grimmy thanks them for coming on with him and then they’re done. They give the mics back, passed the awkwardness of having someone reach up your shirt at this point, and then they’re free to go. Liam finds himself trailing along behind Zayn – they’re going the same direction, after all. Liam doesn’t think he’ll find a better opportunity to talk to Zayn than now.

He sees an empty meeting room up ahead on their left and no one is around, so Liam grabs Zayn’s elbow. “Hey, mate, can we talk?”

Zayn spins around, and nods sheepishly. Liam steers them into the empty room and locks the door behind them. They stand there for a minute or two, neither of them knowing where to start, but knowing this needs to be done. David is right, after all, they can’t keep this up. Acting like they just did for Grimmy, friendly and easy with each other, just to be thrown back into the coldness between them like now? It’s too much. Liam can’t keep that up.

“We need to fix this. This isn’t going to work in the long-term.”

Zayn nods, but doesn’t say anything. He looks down at his nails and starts playing with his cuticles.

“Look, Zayn, will you just talk to me? I’m sorry, okay?” Liam puts it out there.

That finally makes Zayn look up, “For what?”

“You know what for.”

Zayn smiles at him, but it’s all wrong. It’s the alternate universe Zayn smile, the one that doesn’t belong on his face, the one that doesn’t mean joy or happiness. It’s the shield smile. His voice is flat when he responds, “You’re sorry.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m saying,” Liam says, desperate. “I hate this, okay? You’re my best mate and I hate not being able to talk to you. If, you know, you can’t forgive me, that’s fine. I get it.” This was a stupid idea. Zayn obviously isn’t interested in fixing things. They’re going to have to just keep pretending and Liam is going to slip up eventually, and then the band will be over and it will all be his fault. “You know what? I’ll just go. Sorry.”

Liam moves to walk back out the door, but Zayn’s arm comes up and prevents him from leaving. It’s the most contact they’ve had in ages and Liam’s body _aches_ for more touch. Zayn’s lips are very close to Liam’s ear and he can feel the moist breath on his earlobe, “Why do you keep apologizing?”

There’s the million pound question, Liam thinks. Because he’s not sorry for their intimacy. He’s not sorry for loving Zayn, but he is sorry, “Because I _am_ sorry.”

Zayn looks at him blankly, waiting for Liam to continue, waiting for Liam to make him understand, so as always Liam obliges, “I just fucking miss you. I miss watching shit telly and playing Fifa at 2:00 in the morning, and I miss just being around you. I get it, okay? I ruined things with Perrie and you hate me. I cost you the love of your life and you can’t forgive me for that. But don’t tell me I can’t be sorry about it. Don’t tell me I can’t even tell you how awful I feel for making you lose her.”

Zayn’s grip on his chest loosens. He looks incredulous, “You think this is about losing Perrie?”

Liam shrugs, “Isn’t it? I had to read on the internet that you broke up because my best mate won’t talk to me.”

“You think I’m mad at you and avoiding you because I broke up with my beard?”

“What?” His beard? But that means…

“Perrie and I were never really together, Liam.” His voice is as earnest as his face and Liam’s world crashes around him for the second time this month, “We had a deal with each other that I would help promote Little Mix – I genuinely liked their music and I wanted to help them out.”

“But, beard?” Liam prods.

Zayn’s cheeks start to burn red, a sign that his anger is building and Liam can’t avoid it because he doesn’t know why Zayn’s getting so upset.

“Yes, Liam. I’m gay.” Liam honestly had no idea. “Did sucking your dick not clue you in on that fact? Does being head over fucking heels in love with you or some shit not clue you in on that?”

His brain is caught on the words, he hears them on loop in his brain and he’s pretty sure there are actual stars behind his eyes. He can’t form words, his mouth opens and gapes unattractively, forcing him to swallow air until he starts coughing.

“You know what?” Zayn says when Liam doesn’t respond, his eyes blazing with hatred, “Fuck you.”

Zayn walks off and Liam has no idea what just happened. He has no idea how the only words he’s wanted to hear from Zayn for months, perhaps years, made him freeze in place and turn that love against him. He has to run after him, he has to tell him that he loves him too and they can be together and in love and perfect. He’s about to rush out the door, Zayn’s only a few minutes ahead of him and he knows where he lives, when his phone rings.

“Now’s not a great time, Nialler,” He says in lieu of hello.

“We can break the contract, Leeyum!” Niall says with no regard to Liam’s opening line. Liam feels his stomach whirl, this is too much over the course of such a short time. He might vomit.

“Did you hear me? We can get out of this and let Louis and Harry be together!”

“That’s great Niall. I’m so happy for everyone. What do you need me to do?” Because he can’t let Harry and Louis down now, not when they’re so close to getting everything they’ve ever wanted. One Direction have each other’s backs and Liam can’t afford to not catch them. Zayn will still be there tomorrow. Hopefully, Zayn will still love him tomorrow.

“Get down here.”

“Are you at yours?”

“Harry and Louis’ house,” he says and hangs up.

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..

…

..

.

Niall is already talking when Liam opens the front door to Louis and Harry’s place. The lads jump up and crowd him against the door, tickling his stomach, Harry’s curls getting in his mouth.

“Get off, lads,” He says through wheezing laughs.

“I’m so happy!” Harry says, leaving Liam against the door and twirling Louis around like two toddlers at a playground.

Louis goes along with it, picking Harry up and twirling him again. Niall catches Liam’s eye and they both look on fondly. He exaggeratedly rolls his eyes at Niall who smiles back.

“This is what I was afraid of,” Liam remarks, “You two are going to be disgustingly in love – especially now that you can do so in public, too.”

“We definitely, definitely, are. We’re talking top embarrassment factor here, mate. Like, you won’t want to be seen with us in a restaurant level of embarrassing.”

“Feeding the pigeons in the park and arguing over who’s the cutest,” Harry adds, dopey grin stuck on his face.

“Arguing about who’s going to hang up first,” Louis continues.

“You already do that,” Niall says. And that’s a fair point.

“First things first,” Liam corrals them all onto the couch, “let’s get us out in the open before we count our hatched chickens, or sommat like that.”

Harry falls into the couch, every inch of his right side plastered to Louis’ left. “Tell him, Niall, tell him.”

Niall sits on his other side, Liam once again at odds in the seating department, “I’m trying to, you knob. You haven’t given me a chance.”

“Well tell him now,” Harry pouts.

“I’m trying!” Niall pulls his laptop out from the side of the couch, and motions for Liam to come look over his shoulder. “Look here,” he points at a blog post and Liam can’t really read it because the colors are so glaring.

“I can’t read that, can you? God, it’s like pink and orange, who does that?”

“That’s my background,” Niall glares at him.

“Well your taste in colors is for shit,” Liam says plainly, not really worried about offending Niall. “Summarize it for me, then. How do we break the contract?”

Liam can feel the energy in the room, this is a monumental moment for them as a band. They’ve been with Modest! since the X Factor. Simon himself helped write their contract.

“See this girl, Amanda Dawson, bless Amanda Dawson, her father took a look at the contract and there’s a clause in here… where is it? It helps if I read it to you first.” Louis and Harry nod, they’ve already heard this, but both of their eyes are still lit up.

“Whatever, I’ll read it to you later. Anyway, the gist is that because there’s a clause in here about our youth and how we are presented in the media, our parents can break the contract if they don’t help paint us in a favorable light. Now, that excludes things like lying about the truth. Say, if Zayn had murdered a man on the street—”

“Harsh, Niall,” Louis says, then turns to Liam, “When he explained it to us you mugged Justin Timberlake at gun point.”

“Well, I guess it depends on what I was robbing him of, you know?”

“Not the point,” Harry says, poking Louis in the ribs for getting them off-subject, “Let Niall continue please, so we can get started.”

“Thank you, Haz,” Niall says, continuing like he was barely interrupted, “So if Zayn murdered a man on the street, we couldn’t just sweep that under the rug. We couldn’t break the contract because of something true. But things that affect us negatively, like bad press I guess, that they don’t try to stop that can affect our image and careers? Our parents can terminate the contract because of that.”

“You keep saying our parents. What do our parents have to do with this?”

Niall puts the computer on the coffee table, “Do you remember signing another contract when we turned eighteen? Because I know I didn’t. Technically, according to Mr. Dawson, our parents are still our like guarantors or something and are in charge. Louis was eighteen when he signed, but what are they going to do? Keep only him to manage?”

“Okay, that makes sense I guess. Or enough sense.”

“Tell him about my part in it,” Harry says, a self-satisfied grin on his face.

“You have a part in this, Harry?” Liam asks.

Niall glosses over them, “There are several instances we can use, I guess, but do you remember when Harry had that massively huge zit a few months back?”

Liam does remember. He was the one who had to talk Harry round and keep him from freaking out. “The one with its own twitter account?”

“Yes, that one,” Niall says, happy Liam is on board, “Well Modest! knew about the zit twitter page and did nothing to stop it because our single was coming out and we were in the news without them having to manipulate anything. Ergo,” he says, leadingly, like he wants Liam to finish the sentence.

“You mean to tell me that we’re going to break our contract with our management company because Harry had a zit once?”

“That’s exactly what we’re doing,” Louis says, kissing the exact spot where the zit sat on Harry’s face.

Liam looks up at the ceiling. “So what do we have to do?”

“We need to call our parents and talk them into breaking the contract for us. D’you think yours will be up for it?”

Liam can’t imagine that they won’t. His parents have been massively supportive and continue to be to this day, no matter how out of their depth they are and that Liam’s management bleeds into their lives on social media.

“Yeah, they’ll support us. We need to tell Zayn first, though,” he says just as the door opens.

“Tell me what?” He hears from behind him.

“Zayn, we can break the contract!” Harry says, sounding like he just heard the news for the first time again.

“I know, Haz, that’s why I came over. You called me, remember?” His voice is tight. Liam hears none of the usual warmth he uses around the lads.

Zayn walks to the other side of the room, giving Liam a wide berth and his heart sinks. He wants to reach out, put a comforting arm around his waist. He wants to whisper something stupid in his ear, just for the excuse of being that close to him. He wants to shout that he loves him too, but he won’t do that to him in front of their friends. Zayn deserves to have Liam tell him in private.

Liam listens again as Niall explains for the third time how they are going to get out of the contract. “So let’s say Louis and I went on a double homicide bender—“

“Can homicide be a bender, Niall? I don’t think so. I think you go on a ‘spree.’ I read that in a book once,” Liam interrupts just for the look of exasperation on Niall’s face. “Or maybe it was the internet.”

Niall just sighs and keeps going, the patience of a saint. Or an Irishman.

Harry calls his mum and gets her in on the plan. They sit around for a few hours discussing the plan and how to go about breaking the contract. Zayn makes them a quick throw together meal with whatever Louis had in the refrigerator and Liam realizes they’ve been at it for hours and maybe Harry and Louis want to celebrate in peace. He still needs to talk to Zayn though.

He can hear him singing quietly in the kitchen, doing a few dishes. Liam won’t have a better opportunity.

“So we all know what we’re doing?” Liam asks.

Louis plays with Harry’s hair, “Think so, mate.”

“Then we should get some sleep so we can be well rested for our Independence Day.”

“Yeah,” Niall says, fighting a yawn. He’s been at this since the early hours of the morning. “I need a nap like mad. Ready to head back, Liam?”

“In just a second,” Liam says, motioning towards the rotating door that connects the living room to the kitchen.

“Zayn?” he says tentatively. Zayn doesn’t respond. “Can we talk?”

“About what?” He doesn’t even take his hands out of the dirty water.

“You know what I want to talk about.”

He still won’t look at him, but he shakes his head, “I don’t want to talk about that.”

Liam wants to scream in frustration. “We have to talk—“

“ _No_ , we don’t.” Zayn turns around, his hands sudsy and holding a wooden spatula. “You want to talk and discuss things and make it all better so that _you_ feel better about what I said, and I don’t feel like doing that right now. So please just leave it alone for now.”

“But I love you,” Liam hears himself whisper.

Zayn gets up in his face, but not in the way Liam wants him to. “Like a brother right? Well, fuck that, Liam. I don’t love you like a brother and I don’t want to FUCKING TALK ABOUT THIS RIGHT NOW. So get the fuck out.” He slams the spatula he was cleaning down on the counter and it snaps in half. “Damn it!”

Liam takes that as his cue. He should have known better than to try to talk to Zayn before he was ready.

He backs out of the door carefully and goes home with Niall where he sleeps another night on his pathetic couch. It’s starting to have a Liam-shaped indention.

.

..

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.

Suffice to say, management is not happy when they get the phone call from Harry’s mum, Anne. They call each of the lads into the office for a meeting, to none of their surprise. Harry holds Louis’ hand behind Niall’s back during the ‘interrogation’ and Liam jumps in surprise when Simon Cowell himself barges into the room.

He doesn’t stop for introductions, just jumps straight into it, “I can’t believe I got called in for this. Are the parents unhappy?”

David blusters and wipes his bald head with a tissue, “Harry’s mum requested a meeting to discuss present and past issues regarding—“

“Are the parents unhappy?” Simon asks again, looking over Harry’s mum sat in a nice cushiony chair across from their couch of shame. Liam is not surprised to see her nod regally.

“Well, there you go. Seems like the meeting is over, isn’t it? Break the contract,” Simon commands and starts walking back towards the still open door.

“You can’t just order me to do that! You have no right—“ David begins only to be brutally cut off by a dead eyed Simon Cowell, who upon further observation, Liam notices has dark circles under his eyes.

“Legally you have no leg to stand on, David,” Simon’s voice gets scary and he looks like he might strangle David with his bare hands, “The parents are unhappy, they are ceasing the contract under the youth clause with full justification. You work these boys too hard, you muddy their names in the press, you play with their love lives. They were too young to sign up for that and I knew that and I let it happen anyway! I didn’t do anything then, but I’m doing something now. They have my full support. So either break the contract now and save yourselves millions of pounds and humiliation when they win, or take them to court, lose, and lose your deal with the X Factor winners along with all ties to One Direction.”

Simon starts pulling on his own hair and Liam thinks that fatherhood must be a lot harder than he thought it was going to be during his brief flirtation with it, “I don’t have time for this! It’s feeding time. Feeding time! God all he does is eat and poop and sleep for not enough time.”

Simons rushes out of the room like he came in, and the room breathes a sigh of relief. Cheeky Harry, brave Harry, stands up, dusts his skinny jeans off and looks at David right in the eye. “Well?” He looks expectantly, “Do we have a deal?”

“Or an un-deal, as the case may be,” Louis whispers into Liam’s ear.

“Simon Cowell can’t just come in here and tell me what to do,” David says, but even Liam can see from his eyes and his tone that, yes, it appears that Simon Cowell could kind of do that.

“Look,” Niall says from the other side of the couch, “We’ll give you 5% of our earnings for the next two years if you let us go now.”

When did Niall get so law savvy? Liam’s very impressed.

“File the paperwork, David.” Zayn speaks up, “We’d like to avoid a public battle about this like with Rebecca, but we’re willing to do so if necessary.”

David teeters for a minute and then finally Liam sees him give up. He rubs his face with his hand and goes to his bar to pour himself a drink.

“Fine. I’ll have the papers drawn up and sent over to your lawyers tomorrow.”

Something in the air breaks, and Liam realizes that it’s the cage that surrounded them for four and a half years. They’re finally free and Liam wants to dance. He can post whatever he wants on twitter. He can do a twitsteam and answer any question he wants. He can take naked pictures of himself and send them to whoever he fucking wants.

…Not that he will. But’s it’s nice to know he _can_ if he wants to.

They are not subtle in their celebration. Harry and Louis start full on making out right there in David’s office in front of Harry’s mother and everyone, Niall and Zayn link arms and dance in circles around each other and Liam looks over the scene and grins. He snaps a photo on his phone when Harry and Louis briefly come up for air and sends it to Twitter, #NoManagementNoProblems.

Twitter blows up.

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They may be out of a management team, but they’re not out of work. The band still has obligations to fulfill. The major difference Liam finds later that day as well as the next is that with no management, he can’t keep it all straight in his head.

They already knew about the concert in London that night for the album release, so Niall starts shopping around for new management that will be respectful to their relationships and their private lives, and the rest of the lads take advantage of their dearth.

Liam takes an afternoon and goes through every twit mention he got that morning and replies to them, as honestly as he can and as respectfully. Because they’re still a business when you get right down to it. They still have to keep their fans loving them so that they’ll continue to support the band. Liam is just trying to give a little bit of that unconditional support back to them. He wants this relationship to go more than one way.

He’s surprised at the fans who ask about his relationship with Sophia. Apparently a lot of them thought management used her to create Liam’s image of being the perfect, doting, boyfriend. Liam is quick to correct them. That he _is_ a perfect, doting, boyfriend and things with Sophia were as real as could be on his side. He refuses to think about it farther, the pain of her betrayal still fresh in his mind, even if the feelings for her had long since faded. He doesn’t want to know if management had her on their payroll. He doesn’t. He just wants to live in the now and put that chapter behind him.

Later that night, Liam finds himself in his favorite place in the entire world – onstage next to Louis, Niall, Harry, and Zayn. This concert runs a little differently than their other shows do. For one, they can do literally whatever the hell they want, and they do. There are no bullshit rules about how long Harry can stand next to Louis and there will be no reprimands later about Niall singing into Liam’s ear – anything stupid like that.

It’s a freedom that Liam soaks up. They run through three or four of the songs on the new album, the crowd loving it. Liam feels their energy and it’s like they’re just as ecstatic as the lads are, the band and the audience feed off each other’s energy and the pure thrill of performing, the joy at entertaining skyrockets until Liam thinks it might manifest into fireworks or something.

“We want to thank our crew members for sticking with us in our transition,” Harry says to the crowd in that charming way that only he can get away with. He has such a way with their audiences, you wouldn’t know it to look at him in their early days, crippled by stage fright and nerves. “We couldn’t have put on this show with suck a quick turn around without them. So let’s give it up for the One Direction team!”

The crowd screams like they do when Harry says anything. Or sings. Or moves. Liam looks tentatively across the stage to Zayn who continues to stay far away from him. His fingers twitch on his microphone, itching to curl around Zayn’s hand, itching to wrap themselves around Zayn’s fingers until he can’t tell whose fingers are whose by sight alone. He wants to share this energy with him.

His fingers will have to make do like the rest of him until he has a chance to talk to Zayn alone.

They haven’t practiced their new songs as much as they usually practice songs before a tour and it shows just enough for the band to know, but not for the crowd who have only heard the single by now. He falls in love with their songs again, experiencing them for the first time right alongside the crowd.

They finally get to the questions, and Liam sinks into Louis’ side. The first question asks them to make an animal sound. The second asks them to do the Macarena. Liam does not understand the attraction to watching four white boys and one beautiful Pakistani who can’t dance do a stupid dance that was big for a year, but whatever, it’s easy so they do it. Liam shakes his hips and rotates, starting the dance all over and Zayn’s two boys in front of him now. He watches him undulate his hips and yeah. Now Liam gets the appeal. He stops dancing.

“Okay, next question,” he says, “thank you to,” he looks up at the screen to read the name and section, “Leah in section B13 for that ask!”

They watch as the screen transitions to the next question and Louis reads it aloud, “Do you guys have anything you are working on now that you can share with us?”

“A whole new album isn’t good enough for you,” Niall teases, “cheeky, cheeky.”

Louis looks at Liam and they have one of those lightning moments where you are 100% on the same wavelength as someone else. Liam knows exactly what Louis’ thinking and Liam thinks that in this moment if Louis tried to mentally send the Quadratic Equation to him he would understand it.

Liam could do it, he knows he could. But the question is, will he? Is he willing to put himself out there that much? He looks at Harry and Louis, he looks at Niall who’s got an arm around Zayn’s waist and then Liam looks at Zayn. For once, Zayn’s looking right back at him, with a dare in his eyes.

Liam has never been able to turn down a dare.

“I’ve got something I can play,” Liam says to a grinning Louis. The crowd behind them explodes. Liam has a brief flashback to playing by himself for the first time in front of the crowd. But, then again, he wasn’t alone then. Zayn sat right next to him and sang along.

Niall throws him his guitar and they switch microphones again so that Liam can sing while he plays.

“Thanks bro,” Liam says, and he means for so much more than the microphone. He means for letting Liam crash on his couch, for letting Liam spill his sap story, for always knowing the lads better than they know themselves. He just really loves Niall.

“Anytime,” Niall says and Liam thinks he got the message. Liam smiles crookedly at Niall and then turns to the crowd.

He strums the guitar a few times, getting the feel of the instrument and trying to quell his nerves. This is it, there’s no coming back from this after he does this. He sits down on the edge of the stage and chances a quick look back at the rest of the boys, Harry has a serene look on his face. Niall looks fondly at him. Louis looks so proud he might pop a vein, and Zayn looks a bit confused, but anxious. His heart is in his eyes and Liam forces himself to take a breath. He nods slowly at Zayn and then turns back around.

“This is a very special song,” Liam tells the crowd, partly to check the microphone, and partly because he thinks he might barf unless his mouth is otherwise occupied. “A couple weeks ago things looked pretty bleak, and, well, Tommo came upon me playing this song and said I needed to finish it. He’s the only one who’s heard it all the way through. Well, I think two technicians might have heard it too, but whatever. I’m rambling. Here it is. It hasn’t got a name, but it’s for someone I love very much. They know who they are.”

The chords start out slow and melancholy. The crowd is so silent that Liam can hear his own heartbeat blasting in his chest, but his voice never wavers. He sings his love out to all these people who bear witness that Liam Payne is a total sap.

_How can you say_

_I don’t belong with you_

_When the grooves of your hips_

_Were carved for my fingers_

He falters a bit, his hands are shaking so much after the first verse, until he feels Louis sit down next to him and he starts to sing along. Liam smiles at him with just his eyes while they sing on. Liam feels Harry sit down on his other side and Liam’s strength comes back to him. Harry reaches behind him and grabs Louis’ hand. Liam is so happy they finally got their shit together and can do this in front of people now.

_How can you say_

_You don’t belong with me_

_When my collar bone_

_Fits your tongue so perfectly_

He doesn’t turn around to look at Zayn. He can’t for more than one reason. He probably over stepped. The crowd will never know, well, some will be able to put two and two together and come up with four, but they can play this song off for some other unrequited love in Liam’s life. But Zayn will know. Liam wrote this song for him, only him, and Zayn is way too smart to miss that this is Zayn’s song.

He’s on the last verse before the chorus when he notices that he’s crying. Louis puts his arm around his back and they finish the chorus together, Harry joining in for a three part harmony and Liam thinks it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever heard.

He finishes the song and there’s a beat of silence over the stadium until, as one, the crowd absolutely roars, there’s no other word for it. Liam stands up, takes a shallow bow. He gestures to Louis to thank him for his help and to stall for time.

He puts the guitar down and takes the mic off his head. Then he turns around.

Zayn has his microphone raised to his lips and his mouth his gaping wide open. He doesn’t know how long he’s looked like that.

He meets his eyes and the roaring crowd disappears. He looks at the love of his life and he’s looking right back at him. Zayn’s mouth closes. One corner of his mouth starts to quirk up and Liam takes a cautious step forward, fortified by the look of amusement starting to build in Zayn’s gaze.

“Fuck it.” The microphone slips out of Zayn’s fingers as he launches himself across the stage. Liam watches him come, and catches him when Zayn throws himself into his arms. Their mouths meet and Liam sinks into him. This is where he belongs, he thinks, in Zayn’s warmth. Between his legs, supporting him. In Zayn’s silky mouth.

He feels Zayn’s tongue meet his own and Liam’s knees give out. They sink onto the stage, still connected at the mouth.

“You absolute idiot,” Zayn says when they both run out of breath, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I tried,” Liam pecks Zayn’s nose, “You wouldn’t listen to me. You do that sometimes.”

“I mean, why didn’t you tell me before that?”

He looks into Zayn’s worried eyes and, God, he loves him so much. “You were with Perrie. I thought you were just messing around with me. I didn’t know about Perrie being your beard or whatever. I thought… I dunno, I just didn’t think you cared about me like I cared about you.”

“Idiot,” Zayn says, both hands coming up to cup Liam’s face, “I love you. I’ve always loved _you_.”

Liam feels himself smile. He loves hearing that. “Well I didn’t know that at the time. I thought you loved her and I ruined your life because I fell in love with my best mate and his very masculine man parts.”

“Babe, you ruined my life a long time before that. You ruined me for everyone else.”

“Good,” Liam says. He feels a toe gentle nudge him in the ribs. Oh right. They’re still on stage in front of thousands of people. And the internet.

“Are you guys done? We tried to give you a minute, but, uh, we’re kind of still in the middle of a concert, yeah?” Harry says above them.

Liam could lie on the floor of the stage with Zayn on top of him for the rest of their lives, but they have to get up and face the music.

He gets up and then helps Zayn up. The crowd is still screaming, Liam isn’t sure if they ever stopped.

He finds a microphone, Zayn’s actually, in Niall’s hands and puts it up to his face.

“So, um, please disregard that last song. It’s no longer relevant.”

Zayn grabs the mic from him, “It’s still relevant, but we’ve worked it out. Beautiful song, though, babe.”

He melts right there on stage, “Thanks.”

They have to stop the concert after that because no one can focus enough to sing the rest of the songs. Liam doesn’t mind so much.

 

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 **Epilogue** : January 2015

Liam helps Zayn’s mum set the table. He’s not really a guest, after all. They’ve known him and loved him for years and even though he and Zayn are together now, that doesn’t really change the relationship with the rest of his family. Well, not too much at least.

Mr. Malik had definitely glared at him a little upon arriving. Liam put that down to corrupting his son into liking cock. That tends to be a by-product of falling in love with a dude, though.

Zayn’s sitting on the couch in the other room, being completely not helpful. A fact that his mother hasn’t missed.

“Zayn, come help Liam with the table,” she says and Zayn groans. In their house, Liam usually does any dishes they have. Mostly because Zayn always cooks.

Zayn doesn’t say anything back, just pretends to be asleep. Liam knows he’s not sleeping and by the look on his mother’s face, she knows too.

“Zaynie, we all know you aren’t sleeping. Now come help Liam or I’m going to show him that article you made me promise not to show him.” She winks at Liam, and then looks pointedly at an open magazine on the edge of the counter. Liam smiles his thanks and picks it up. The table’s done anyway.

Turns out that gets Zayn moving. “Mum! You promised you wouldn’t.”

“Well you promised to help Liam this morning at breakfast, we all heard you.” She shoots back and Liam only has one ear on the conversation because he’s looking at the article. On one side of the article is a large black and white picture of Zayn that takes up the whole page. Liam stares at it for a moment or two, still surprised every time that Zayn is actually that beautiful in real life and in print. In another life, or if he were less talented at basically everything, he could have been a model.

“Don’t read that, Liam,” Zayn whines, trying to snatch it out of his hand.

“Why not? You look lovely, here. I’m obsessed with this picture. I want it framed and hanging in our bedroom.” Liam holds the magazine above his head and Zayn tries to tickle him to reach it. Zayn plays dirty, but Liam can play dirty too.

He kisses him on the mouth until he forgets he’s trying to keep Liam from reading the article.

“Please,” he says, “Can I read it?”

Zayn still looks a little dazed and Liam loves that no one can put that expression on his face but Liam.

“Yeah, I guess. But don’t laugh at me.”

Liam kisses him on the forehead softly. “No promises, babe.”

Zayn just shakes his head, “Idiot.”

“You two are so adorable,” Zayn’s mum says and shit, Liam forgot she was in the room. He feels himself blush a little.

“Fine, go read it while I finish the table.”

“What are you going to do? Put another salt shaker on the table? It’s done,” Liam says, but he reaches for a chair to sit down and read the article.

He looks at the title, then looks up at Zayn’s sheepish expression. “You talked to a magazine about how much you loooooove me?”

“It came up,” he says.

Liam raises an eyebrow at his boyfriend, but looks back to the article.

“Okay, it’s 80% about your abs and 10% about your big heart.”

“My big heart?” Liam can’t exactly raise his eyebrow again, but he thinks the look he gives Zayn pulls off the sardonic attitude he was going for.

Zayn looks over at his mother putting the final touches on a dish and leans in to whisper in Liam’s ear, “By ‘heart’ I meant ‘dick.’ 10% about your big dick.”

Liam grins, “And what’s the other 10%?”

“How much I admire and love you. Romantic shit like that.”

He can tell from the growing vulnerability in the tone of Zayn’s voice that whatever was in this article, is in fact about how much Liam is loved by Zayn, “My boyfriend is so good at romantic shit.”

Zayn continues like he didn’t hear Liam’s comment, “And how it’s the only article they’re ever going to get about our relationship until one of us tragically dies of heart attack during sex at age eighty.”

“How’d they take that?”

“They were pretty respectful about it, actually. The interviewer only asked me one question about us.”

“Oh yeah,” Liam asks, hearing the rest of Zayn’s family trickle into the kitchen, “What was her question?”

“If we were truly in love.”

“And what did you say?”

Zayn’s hand sneaks into his under the table, “Hell yeah.”


End file.
